Hurricane Isaac slammed into southeast Louisiana. The storm touched down at around 6:45 p.m. Tuesday. The storm reached hurricane status with powerful winds of more than 75 miles an hour.

But Isaac isn't expected to be as devastating as Hurricane Katrina when it slammed New Orleans seven years ago.

The American Red Cross is gathering supplies and sending in volunteers. Last week, a Berks County volunteer was sent ahead of the storm to Tampa and Tuesday he was on the move.

The track of Hurricane Isaac swayed westward since forecasters made their predictions last week.

"You're never sure of the track," said Adrian Grieve, the executive director of the Berks County Chapter of the American Red Cross, "We start staging as best as we can."

Friday, Peter Warchal, a mental health disaster specialist for the Red Cross, left his home in Exeter Township for Tampa. Tuesday night he traveled 550 miles to Pensacola, Fla.

"We are going through bands of rain," said Warchal by phone. "We'll travel and all of sudden we'll get hit with a tremendous shower. And it will just stop. And then we'll go another 15 miles and then get nailed again with another band."

He said he was with dozens of volunteers who were deployed before the storm. And he believed their final staging area would be Mississippi.

The Red Cross said other volunteers are also on their way to the Gulf Coast.

And Adrian Grieve said those communities are preparing for Isaac while thinking about Hurricane Katrina, which hit seven years ago Wednesday.

"I'm sure that's in people's minds," said Grieve, "And again folks like Peter and many of our mental health workers in the area that's part of their job even at this point is to help people deal with that fear."

Warchal said as he travels with fellow Red Cross Volunteers people seem to look at them as a security blanket and are getting a psychological boost.

"The comments that you would hear was, 'oh guys we're so glad you're here' and 'you make us feel so secure and so safe'," said Warchal, "And things of that nature."

The Red Cross said they expect this storm to move slowly and it might be a few days before the clean up begins, but they will be in place.