WESTPORT, Conn. (Sept. 11, 2008) — Save the Children has dispatched an emergency response team to Texas to assist hundreds of thousands of children and families who are evacuating their homes to escape fast-approaching Hurricane Ike, which continues to gather strength in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sha, age 4, looks through her evacuation backpack distibuted by Save the Children at an emergency shelter in Louisiana.  Similar shelters will be established in Texas following Hurricane Ike.

According to the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane Ike, which is currently a Category Two hurricane, could evolve into a much stronger Category Three storm later Thursday or Friday. 

Evacuations are already underway in Houston and Galveston. Save the Children emergency experts will be working in shelters in San Antonio to initiate programs for children as they arrive.

President George Bush has declared a state of emergency in Texas, and Texas Governor Rick Perry has declared 88 coastal counties as disaster areas.   

Save the Children — which helped thousands of displaced families from the Gulf Coast last week following Hurricane Gustav and assisted over 190,000 children and caregivers after Hurricane Katrina — plans to provide similar assistance to help meet the basic needs of infants, toddler and older children in the evacuation centers in Texas.

Following Hurricane Gustav, the agency distributed over 80,000 diapers, baby wipes, and hundreds of play cribs to assist families with young children in some twenty mass shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi.  

With support from the American Red Cross, Save the Children is preparing to establish Safe Spaces for children in Texas shelters as it did for displaced children following the Gustav evacuation. Safe Spaces are designed to help protect children and provide a chance for them to interact with peers and caring adults.  Safe Spaces make it possible to establish a sense of normalcy, even in the midst of a crowded emergency shelter, by offering children and families a supervised area filled with toys, art supplies, books and games.

Save the Children is also working with child care networks throughout Texas. Once families can go back to their homes, Save the Children plans to work to ensure that child care centers can quickly re-establish services and schools can rebound so students do not fall behind in their education.

"Children are extremely vulnerable during an emergency and evacuation," said Mark Shriver, Save the Children's vice president for U.S. programs. "We know from experience that their needs are often overlooked during the confusion before, during and after a disaster. Save the Children will be there to provide safe activities for children in shelters and to help them and their parents return to the normalcy once the danger has passed."

"We are also concerned about maintaining sound health practices at the evacuation centers," Shriver said. "In Gustav shelters we found that many families had no way to wash their clothes, and young mothers had to bathe their babies in sinks used by hundreds of other shelter residents. We will be working with shelter officials to see if we can improve the level of hygiene maintained at the shelters."

Save the Children is the leading independent organization creating lasting change for children in the United States and in more than 50 countries around the world. For more than 75 years, the agency has been helping children survive and thrive by improving their health, education and economic opportunities and, in times of acute crisis, mobilizing assistance to help children recover from the effects of war, conflict and natural disasters.

How You Can Help

With your help, Save the Children was able to respond to the needs of children impacted by the massive evacuation of families from the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, the recent flooding in the Midwest, the wildfires in California as well as our ongoing work in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. By donating to the U.S. Emergencies Fund, you can help keep America's children safe and strong before, during and after emergencies like Hurricanes Ike, Gustav and future emergencies. Donate to the U.S. Emergencies Fund and support our work.

Your contribution will help Save the Children's U.S. disaster programs focus on four key areas in this and future U.S. crises: creating Safe Spaces in community gathering places; supporting the recovery of organizations that children and families depend on; offering emergency preparedness workshops for children and their care providers; and building children's and caregiver's resilience.

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