BATON ROUGE - Two emergency relief vehicles took off Monday morning from the American Red Cross headquarters in Baton Rouge and headed to the Carolinas for Hurricane Florence cleanup.

Red Cross Public Relations Manger Stephanie Wagner is spearheading the local effort.

"They are driving an emergency response vehicle or an ERV, like you see behind me," Wagner told WBRZ. "This vehicle is used for responding to the area hardest hit by the disaster."

Some areas of North Carolina struck by Florence look much like the capital region during the flood of 2016.

Louisiana firefighters have been there since day one, as well as dozens of first responders led by the State Fire Marshal's Office.

The local red cross volunteers are deployed for at least two weeks, leaving their family and loved ones behind.

"It's very tough to deploy to a disaster," Wagner said. "It puts a lot of stress on the volunteer having to leave their family, and go into these tough situations."

But Wagner says Red Cross volunteers and first responders live for the call to help, and tough situations are what they've been training for.