(ABC 6 NEWS) -- When disaster strikes, the American Red Cross is always there to help out.

It's been no different in Fargo and Moorhead, where the Red Cross has been since the sandbagging began.

When Red Cross volunteers Laura Rice and Dale Deters arrived in Fargo more than a week ago, they came to help strangers.

"We're working anywhere between 12 and 14 hour days," says Deters.

They worked long days to help feed the stomachs and hearts of volunteers and residents.

Work that is sometimes physically and emotionally draining.

"Yeah it's been very emotional," Rice said, through tears.

But it took mere hours for those strangers to become familiar faces.

"People are so gratified, you know that we do it, and everything and it's really good," says Deters.

That's why both are willing to do whatever they can for as long as it takes to make sure these people are taken care of.
    
"They're all happy to see the vehicles come in," says Deters.

There are some places the Red Cross can't get to in a big vehicle like this.

So they're actually taking supplies and loading them up into another truck, and then workers will take them into places they can't get.

While they are making a big impact on the people they're helping, those people are also making a big impact on them since the moment they arrived.

"Right when we got there you saw them out there, working and they were really energized and hopeful. That was the word that I thought: hopeful. They just kept going at it," Rice says.
   
"We'd go back to those families and they'd still be there by themselves doing one bag at a time and that was really hard because you just knew they had a long way to go," she says.

It's the stories of this flood zone that keep them going and while it may be heartbreaking at time.

"The one woman was asking for more people and that's hard for us because we're there to provide as much comfort as we can through basic needs and give them numbers, but the others are flooded too, so that's kind of heartbreaking," says Rice.   

"I'm really impressed with the kids who are out here, if it wasn't for them, this place would be gone, it wouldn't have happened," says Deters.

There is also inspiration seeing others not giving up, and seeing neighbor helping neighbor.