Monitoring Storms and Hurricanes

We carefully study the weather

When we’re monitoring a tropical storm, we use a variety of sources to give us a detailed overview of the situation.

Depending on where a storm is predicted to make landfall, we will often monitor local news sources and government and disaster management agency websites. This helps us understand how governments and local agencies are preparing for and responding to the storm.

We continue to monitor after the storm has made landfall to understand the impact on affected communities, and to see if there will be an emergency shelter need.

Jump to how we monitor hurricanes

We place our aid in strategic locations

Before a disaster happens, we make sure we are ready to help.

Thanks to your donations, we store aid in strategic locations around the world so we can get it to the families who need it as quickly as possible.

As soon as it’s possible to enter the country, we’re there.

We handpick from our team of expert volunteers

Over the past 19 years, we’ve built up a team of incredible volunteers who are ready to help at a moment’s notice.

Between them, they speak multiple languages and have responded to more than 200 disasters.

Every ShelterBox volunteer always has a bag packed and is ready to go within less than three days.

We make contact

As soon as we see disaster looming, we make contact with our partners on the ground.

We establish the scale of potential destruction, the number of people likely to be affected and exactly what help they need from us – and you.

Our partners enable us to find out more information so that we can go further and reach more people that desperately need support.

We go that extra mile

After a disaster, we use every means possible to reach families in hard to reach areas.

Our teams travel by foot, boat, helicopter or even tuk-tuk to get there. Whatever it takes to reach communities who are often overlooked by others.

We are committed to seeing a world where no family goes without shelter after disaster and we help as many families as we can.

But we are a charity with limited resources and knowing who, where and when we can help can be hard.

We use our response criteria to make the decision around whether or not we are in a position to respond.

These questions help us make those tough decisions. Most importantly, they help us prioritize vulnerable families around the world who wouldn’t otherwise receive the vital support they need.