As Hurricane Ike's aftermath is felt in Texas, local volunteers are gearing up to help in any way they can.

The massive storm, nearly as big as the state of Texas itself, blasted a 500 mile stretch of coastline from Texas to Louisiana with winds gusting to over 110 miles per hour.

Andrea Grimaldi, of the Westchester branch of the American Red Cross, says they are currently providing aid and comfort in 155 shelters to the 20,000 people in the affected area.

?There are currently over 2,000 American Red Cross volunteers who have deployed to the area, and an additional 1,500 are waiting to be deployed,? she says.

In the meantime, Texas officials say they are mounting the largest search and rescue effort in state history to locate more than 100,000 people who refused to evacuate in advance of the storm.

Grimaldi advises people who are trying to locate friends and family who may have been affected by the storm to go on the Red Cross Web site, but she warns that it may take several days because as many as 4 million people were left without power in the Gulf Coast region.