Red Cross seeks to double hurricane shelter vols

Long Island's American Red Cross chapters are seeking more volunteers to improve staffing of shelters if a hurricane hits the region.

The Nassau and Suffolk chapters have about 350 volunteers each, enough to provide skeleton staffing at the 25 designated shelters in each county, officials say.

While all of the shelters are rarely mobilized simultaneously, the Red Cross wants to double its capacity for housing displaced people on the Island from 60,000 to 120,000 and reduce the dependence on volunteers from outside the region. And that will require at least another 700 volunteers.

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