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Direct Relief provides medical aid for mobile care in a Hurricane Milton-damaged neighborhood. The aid was delivered to Dr. Yousef Motii, who conducted medical outreach in the destroyed Spanish Lakes neighborhood in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Motii is a clinician at Oceana Health, which has been providing medical services to residents impacted by 2024's hurricanes. (Photo by Bimarian Films)
As hurricanes, fueled by warming oceans, grow more destructive, reaching farther inland and striking with greater intensity, Direct Relief is expanding its disaster response strategy to meet rising humanitarian needs.
While continuing its decades-long practice of prepositioning donated medicines ahead of hurricanes and delivering urgently needed medical supplies after disasters, Direct Relief is intensifying efforts to make vulnerable communities more resilient. This includes addressing the broad, long-term effects of disasters, such as disrupted access to healthcare, prolonged displacement, and mental health crises, and committing to recoveries that can span years, long after global attention has faded.
In its expansion, Direct Relief remains true to its long-standing principles of efficiency and lean operations. While selectively expanding its team in regions especially vulnerable to disasters, the organization continues to work primarily through local partners—those with deep community ties and insight into local needs.
Click the map above to explore Direct Relief’s Hurricane Preparedness Program and the path of current storms.
Direct Relief is also deepening cooperation with regional multilateral organizations in the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia, equipping regional hubs for distributing disaster aid and for helping individual nations coordinate their preparation and response.
With the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season beginning on June 1, Direct Relief is involved in dozens of hurricane-related projects in the Caribbean’s vulnerable island nations and along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf Coasts. In addition to caching medicine and supplies ahead of the storms, the work includes providing health-related infrastructure like pharmaceutical refrigerators, medical oxygen, and resilient power supplies, as well as grants to backstop local partners in the immediate aftermath of disasters.
Direct Relief is also increasingly working with partners beyond direct providers of medical care, supporting search and rescue teams, community health workers, crisis-related mental health groups, community resiliency hubs, and more.
Emergency medical aid departs Direct Relief’s warehouse on Sept. 30, 2024, bound for communities impacted by Hurricane Helene. The shipment, bound for Evara Health in Clearwater, Florida, contained 23 field medic packs for medical care outside of clinic walls, and also personal care products for people staying in shelters who have been displaced by the storm. (Lara Cooper/Direct Relief)
“It’s important to take a step back and look at what we’re doing from a preparedness perspective beyond our prepositioning programs,” said Dan Hovey, Direct Relief’s VP of Emergency Response. “Direct Relief’s preparedness programs are active all year round, all working towards the goal of strengthening the response capacity of our local healthcare partners.”
Because Direct Relief does not accept any government funding, the organization’s capacity is unhindered by government budget cuts across the non-profit sector this year, although many of its local partners have lost funding.
An Active 2025 Hurricane Season Expected
Climate change continues to increase the threat of stronger and more damaging hurricanes. The 2025 hurricane season in the Atlantic basin is forecast to have above-normal activity, according to the annual hurricane outlook from Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science.
Sea surface temperatures across the eastern and central Atlantic are warmer than normal, although not as warm as they were last year at this time, the group said. It is forecasting 17 named storms this season, compared to an average of 14.4 between 1991 and 2020.
Pre-positioning Aid for 2025 Hurricane Season
Hurricane preparedness packs depart Direct Relief’s warehouse in this file photo, bound for hurricane-prone communities along the U.S. Gulf and East Coasts and the Caribbean. (Lara Cooper/Direct Relief)
Direct Relief is prepositioning hurricane prep packs, or HPPs—large caches of the medicines and medical supplies most commonly needed in the aftermath of hurricanes—with community health clinics and regional partners in areas most vulnerable to the storms. The HPPs include medicine for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, inhalers for breathing problems, antibiotics, antifungal treatments, epinephrine and other treatments for allergic reactions, wound care supplies, and much more.
This year in the United States, Direct Relief is prepositioning 70 HPPs along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts and in Puerto Rico, each of which is intended to provide support for 350 patients for 30 days.
Outside of the U.S., Direct Relief is prepositioning 13 HPPs in the Caribbean and Central America—including in the Dominican Republic, Panama and Honduras, and one in Florida stored securely in case it is needed in Haiti—along with two in the South Pacific, in Vanuatu and Fiji. The international-sized HPPs are intended to provide enough supplies to support 1,000 patients for 30 days.
These HPPs give local healthcare providers quick access to medicine to respond to an emergency, said Luis David Rodríguez, Direct Relief’s Emergency Response Manager, Caribbean & Latin America, who is based in Puerto Rico. “We bypass the shipping and customs clearance process that can take weeks in some countries in the region,” he said.
In Houston, the San José Clinic opened its HPP after last June’s Category 5 Hurricane Beryl knocked out electricity for four days, spoiling its refrigerated insulin and vaccines, said Adlia M. Ebeid, Chief Clinical Officer of the free and charitable clinic. In addition to the HPP, Direct Relief offered emergency medicine shipments to partners affected by hurricanes. “Both of those coupled together get us through some really hard times,” she said.
San José Clinic also participates in Direct Relief’s year-round medicine replenishment program, “so we’re able to get brand-name medications that are otherwise very expensive for our patients but render optimal outcomes, at no cost to the patients,” Ebeid noted.
In North Carolina, Cape Fear juts eastward into the Atlantic, putting it squarely in the path of hurricanes barreling up the East Coast. Cape Fear Clinic, which provides healthcare to 1,300 low-income and uninsured patients across four counties, has received HPPs and other Direct Relief aid for many years.
Kevin Stang, a care coordinator at Cape Fear Clinic in Wilmington, NC, examines a patient. Cape Fear Clinic has received Direct Relief hurricane preparedness packs and other medical aid. (Photo by Donnie Hedden for Direct Relief)
“The medications and supplies included in the hurricane prep packs allow us to respond immediately to urgent needs, such as managing chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, treating infections, and addressing life-threatening allergic reactions,” said Jennifer Buxton, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Pharmacy Officer at the Cape Fear Clinic.
“During hurricanes, access to healthcare is often disrupted, and our clinic becomes a lifeline for the community. These resources ensure continuity of care for our vulnerable populations, minimizing the long-term health impacts of disasters.”
2018’s Hurricane Florence caused extensive power outages along North Carolina’s coast, and Cape Fear Clinic lost its supplies of insulin and vaccines. “Direct Relief was integral in getting us gas-powered generators so that we don’t have to go through the refrigeration outages again,” Buxton said.
Recovery from 2024’s Hurricanes Helene and Milton
The sharpest hurricane-related shock last season was the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Helene upon western North Carolina, far from coastal areas that typically bear the brunt of hurricanes.
“Prolonged lack of access to power, water, and internet impacted residents for quite some time and really hampered health centers’ ability to serve their communities,” said Annie Vu, Direct Relief’s Associate Director, U.S. Emergency Response. “Health center staff faced challenges in providing care to those who need it most, deployed mobile units, and went door-to-door in hard-hit neighborhoods. The storm impacted not just health, but also schools, mental health services, even getting to neighborhoods in more rural areas that were cut off.”
Immediately after Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck the Southeast in rapid succession, Direct Relief provided or committed $700,000 in emergency grant funding to 28 health care organizations in Florida, North Carolina, and Tennessee, to help cover the cost of urgently needed supplies, staffing, repairs, and other necessities. Since landfall, Direct Relief has provided more than $32 million in assistance to health providers across the hardest-hit states, including $27 million in medical aid and $5.8 million in financial support.
Dr. Yousef Motii conducts medical outreach in the destroyed Spanish Lakes neighborhood in Ft. Pierce, Florida. Motii is a clinician at Oceana Health, which has been providing medical services to residents impacted by recent hurricanes. (Photo by Bimarian Films)
Local communities will be dealing with the storms’ aftermath for years, and Direct Relief will be there with them. Direct Relief has awarded over $5 million in grant funding for organizations helping people recover from the storms.
In North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Direct Relief granted $85,000 to the Swannanoa Valley Housing Stabilization Project, run by Swannanoa Communities Together. The project is working to help people whose homes were destroyed or damaged by the storm to stay in the community, providing rental assistance, housing navigation, and wellness services to disaster-impacted residents, prioritizing those at risk of displacement.
Direct Relief’s Annie Vu delivers a field medic pack to staff at Blue Ridge Health in Hendersonville, North Carolina, in October 2024, to support the clinic’s outreach after Hurricane Helene. (Photo by David Uttley for Direct Relief)
In nearby Asheville, Resources for Resilience received a $90,000 grant for programs delivering trauma-informed resilience training to frontline workers, caregivers, youth, and other residents across western North Carolina, addressing stress and burnout following Hurricane Helene. Between October 2024 and April 2025, more than 1,700 area residents attended its workshops, weekly listening circles, and facilitator trainings, with live events in 10 counties.
“We hear a lot about home damage, loss of land, and loss of loved ones,” said Ashley Putnam, Director of Programs & Partnerships at Resources for Resilience. “The landscape here is forever changed, and that’s often coming up as a hard thing for individuals.”
Meghan Corneal joined Direct Relief earlier this year as its Asheville-based emergency response team member for the Southeast region. She focuses on building trusted relationships and deepening collaboration to strengthen community-based health systems, support locally led disaster recovery and resilience, and ensure resources are directed by and toward those most impacted.
Direct Relief staff delivered medical support to NC MedAssist, a charitable pharmacy in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Oct. 7, 2024, as part of Hurricane Helene response efforts. NC MedAssist ships medications across the state, primarily to patients who are uninsured, and the organization received requested medications from Direct Relief, including tetanus vaccines to protect those involved in storm cleanup, and epinephrine injections for those allergic to bees and yellowjackets, which have been a concern, post-storm. (Photo by David Uttley for Direct Relief)
While community health centers and free clinics remain a central set of partners, “we’re looking holistically at the landscape and seeing how we can resource and connect some of those community-based actors to federally qualified health centers and free clinics,” Corneal said. There is a strong need to “focus on preparedness and resilience work in this region, because we will continue to face climate crises.”
Regional Disaster Hubs and Response Coordination
In the Caribbean, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia, Direct Relief has been working closely with regional and multilateral organizations to set up regional hubs for storing and distributing disaster aid and for helping individual nations coordinate their preparation and response. In advance of the 2025 hurricane season, Direct Relief is supplying regional emergency medical stockpiles in Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, Panama, Malaysia, and Mexico.
In Barbados, Direct Relief is helping equip a new disaster response hub that the UN World Food Programme and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, or CDEMA, are setting up. In mid-April, Direct Relief donated and delivered a room-sized pharmaceutical refrigerator to store temperature-sensitive medications like insulin, large enough to hold 11 shipping pallets of medicine, Rodriguez said.
The pharmaceutical refrigerator “will play a critical role in building awareness of the national disaster management agencies on temperature-sensitive logistics,” said Andrew Jackson, Head of Supply Chain for the WFP’s Caribbean Multi-Country Office in Barbados. “This is a key gap that needs to be addressed.”
Direct Relief staff deliver a hurricane prep pack to Vieques, Puerto Rico. As part of Direct Relief’s Hurricane Preparedness Program, established in 2006, the organization pre-positions hurricane preparedness packs each year in secure locations near vulnerable areas, providing partner facilities with the medications and medical supplies they’d need in case of a storm. Each is stocked with enough materials to treat 100 patients for 72 hours. (Photo by Xavier Garcia for Direct Relief)
In mid-2024, Direct Relief made a $3 million grant to the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and nine of its members. From that grant, Direct Relief has procured and donated to St. Lucia equipment including oxygen concentrators, nebulizers, and BiPap machines for breathing assistance; a mobile medical unit and solar-powered pharmaceutical cold storage unit for Montserrat; and a centralized medical oxygen system for Princess Margaret Hospital in Anguilla.
Across the globe in Malaysia, Direct Relief is prepositioning 200 emergency response backpacks at the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, or AHA Center, which coordinates emergency response among the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Funds on Hand for Rapid Response and Recovery
In addition to a $15 million emergency stockpile of medicines and supplies, Direct Relief also keeps over $1 million in reserved funds on hand so it can immediately aid frontline groups like search and rescue teams, without having to wait for new donations to come in specifically for that response, Hovey said.
“Maybe the power is down and there is a need to purchase a generator or other supplies to re-open the local health center,” Hovey said. “We maintain an emergency reserve fund to provide rapid and flexible support to storm-impacted communities.”
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