National Shelter System Maps For Tennessee Flood Victims From Red Cross and FEMA

The Red Cross and FEMA jointly operate the National Shelter System, a comprehensive database of over 54,000 emergency shelters across the United States.  When shelters are activated during an emergency, this system is used to monitor locations, capacities, and other shelter information.  In addition to Red Cross and FEMA staff and volunteers, many state and local organizations use this information as well.

After this week's tragic storms in the Southeastern US, the Red Cross website began providing interactive maps of shelters in the Nashville and Memphis areas, fed by the NSS database.  Visitors to the site can search for shelters closest to their location and view near-real-time data of shelter residents and available capacity.  A "donate button" call to action appears in the pop-up descriptions for each shelter facility, bringing users from local response activity information back to the Red Cross national campaign donation site.