Editor's note: WRAL's Amanda Lamb offers a behind-the-scenes look at what TV news reporters do, the people they meet and how their jobs affect them.

Imagine getting less than six hours' notice to pack for a three-week trip, get your affairs at home in order, and get on the road?

That’s exactly what American Red Cross disaster relief volunteers do.

Many of them are retired and have the ability to drop everything at a moment’s notice and come. But equally as many have small businesses or have employers that allow them to donate their time.

More Info     Hurricane Sandy recovery: How to help

They walk away from their lives and help.

This kind of volunteerism is something we need more of in the wake of a disaster like Hurricane Sandy, but let’s face it: People have jobs, children and responsibilities, and can’t always get away.

This is why the American Red Cross is doing on-the-job training in the field.

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Editor's note: WRAL's Amanda Lamb offers a behind-the-scenes look at what TV news reporters do, the people they meet and how their jobs affect them.

As far as the eye can see, there are charred remnants of homes destroyed by a blaze that ripped through Breezy Point, N.Y., during Hurricane Sandy.

If you didn’t know what happened here, you would think a bomb had dropped.

In a several-block area, only five houses are still standing, and even those are uninhabitable.

When you look at the devastation all around you, it’s clear that no photograph – not even video – can capture the sheer magnitude of what you are seeing.

When you look closer, you really see what was lost.

There are blackened photographs, melted record albums, mangled bicycles, even a statue of the Virgin Mary holding a single rose surrounding by nothing but rubble.

And when you understand that generations of families lived here side-by-side – grandparents, parents,...

Editors note: Amanda Lamb is in the northeast United States this week reporting on clean-up and recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy tore through the region two weeks ago.

As far as the eye can see, there is devastation in the Northeast.

People’s lives are spilled out on the streets in dirty piles. Things that were once treasures are now trash – trash that no one is picking up. The piles are so high that some people can barely see out their front door, if they still have one, that is.

To add insult to obvious injury, the weather has turned gray, cold and rainy – a reminder of what is to come in a typical Northeastern winter.

But there is nothing typical about the impending winter for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Many of them are still without power and, still, others have no homes at all.

But in the midst of all of the rubble, there are little glimmers of hope embodied in volunteers who have come from all over the country to lend a hand...

Editors note: Amanda Lamb is in the northeast United States this week reporting on clean-up and recovery efforts after Hurricane Sandy tore through the region two weeks ago.

While the hustle and bustle of urban life continues to swirl around them, life has literally stopped in small pockets of New York and New Jersey.

You drive through streets lined with cafes and shops, people listening to their iPods and checking their text messages and turn a corner to see piles of drywall, insulation and children’s pictures strewn in front yards for blocks.

Unlike the Gulf States after Hurricane Katrina, the northeast is so densely populated and so commercially driven that life for many people has resumed as normal by necessity.

But for their neighbors, in places like Island Park and Long Beach, N.Y., everything is at a standstill while they figure out what to do and where to go next.

Generations of families who lived in the same neighborhoods are now homeless....