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Utah Red Cross volunteers being deployed to Florida ahead of Hurricane Irma

(Ana Ramirez | The Victoria Advocate via AP) Water crashes along the bay front in Port Lavaca, Texas, Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas late Friday, lashing a wide swath of the Gulf Coast with strong winds and torrential rain from the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade.

  | Sep. 9, 2017, 2:00 p.m.

Three days before Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, the American Red Cross of Utah deployed dozens of volunteers to prepare for the relief efforts.

As Hurricane Irma approaches the Florida peninsula this weekend, state Red Cross officials are once again sending trained volunteers to prepare for the storm’s aftermath.

“In Houston, the flooding has been the really catastrophic part and we are still there in force,“ said Rich Woodruff, spokesman for the Utah Red Cross. “Now we are getting punch No. 2 and we are turning a lot of attention toward redeploying and sending people to the areas Irma could hit.”

There are about 85 Utah volunteers working between Houston and areas of Florida, the Carolinas and the Gulf Coast. Nationwide, Woodruff said there are more than 4,000 Red Cross volunteers rotating through these areas and the organization is hoping to more than double that as Irma makes landfall over the weekend and into next week.

The Utah group isn’t looking for new disaster relief volunteers at this time, Woodruff said. Instead, the group is pulling eligible people for two-week stints from a list of nearly 1,200 registered volunteers. Their responsibilities mainly focus on mass care and sheltering, but can range from damage assessment to helping people with mental health issues.

There have been more than 20,000 people nationwide who have asked to volunteer since Harvey hit, Woodruff said — a good problem to have, he added. Donations to help with Red Cross efforts for those affected by Harvey and Irma can be made at Redcross.org.

Utah will send more volunteers depending on the level of need after Irma hits the main land, Woodruff said.

“We are airing on the side of being over prepared to make sure there are enough people and we will adapt as needed,” he said. “If it’s not as bad, we will bring people back home.”