This weekend, Hurricane Harvey struck the state of Texas here in the US, leaving a path of complete destruction. The death toll as of this morning sits at six but with another 24″ of rain expected in some areas, that is likely to rise. Once the waters recede from the Texas coast, the billions of dollars in damage will be revealed and it is going to be very high.
The American Red Cross is already in the area helping victims of the storm and Google is helping their efforts. Google.org, the charitable arm of Google, has grant donation of $250,000 to the American Red Cross and Google employees themselves have donated another $250,000. This will help the ARC continue their work in the area, who will be active for a long time after Hurricane Harvey is no more.
In addition, Google has enabled the SOS alert system in the Google app. This feature gives users:
- For people outside the affected area, the SOS Alert features the latest news, a crisis map, tweets, and the ability to make a donation for those affected.
- For people in affected areas, the SOS Alert features the latest news, a crisis map, tweets from local officials, and help and info content for transit and flooding conditions.
In particular, the crisis map highlights area shelters, road closures and of course weather information.
If you would like to help financially, you can do so at the Hurricane Harvey relief page on the American Red Cross site.
