The agency is "absolutely a success story," said John Clizbe, vice president of disaster services at the American Red Cross.
In the Deep South especially, volunteers from the National Baptist Convention, the largest African-American Christian denomination in the country, are an essential link between victims and government disaster services.
City living was "part of the adventure for us at this time of our life," said Mr. Berglund, 55, the Salvation Army's director of emergency disaster services for Greater New York.
The Red Shield of David society has been a pillar of Israel's emergency health, blood and disaster services for nearly 40 years.
The agency is assessing their emergency needs, principally clothing and food, said Robert Reggio, the Red Cross coordinator of disaster services in Westchester County.
More than $400,000 has been pledged to the Red Cross, not all earmarked for the tornado relief, said Joe Becker, senior vice president for disaster services at Red Cross headquarters.
"We had set up our command post there because we needed to evacuate 150 patients," Darrel Whitfield, who manages disaster services for the City of Arlington, said in a telephone interview.
But at a Congressional hearing on Thursday, Joseph S. Becker, senior vice president for disaster services at the Red Cross, said it needed $7 million to fulfill its obligations to maintain a staff to coordinate state and federal disaster resources.
Joanne Lemley, who is retired and lives in Doylestown, Pa., rents out her house near the ocean in Salvo, N.C., through a real estate agency but decided not to shell out for extra disaster services.
