Josh Duhamel's Emotional Plea for Flooding Hometown Help
'Transformers: Dark of the Moon' star Josh Duhamel is in Moscow today for the big premiere of his summer blockbuster, but his mind is on his sister and the residents of his hometown of Minot, North Dakota, where flooding is threatening to submerge the place where he grew up.
"They're about to get massive flooding in my hometown," Josh tells ET's Mark Steines. "Major evacuations in the whole city, my sister's going to lose her house. The town sits on two hills and in between those two hills is a big valley, and everything inside that valley is going to be gone."
More than 11,000 residents, almost a quarter of the population, have already been forced to leave their homes as waters continue to rise towards historic levels, leaving entire neighborhoods under water.
"I just want people to be aware that this is going on, and if there's anything that they can do to help to donate money to the MinotRedCross.org," continues Josh. "A lot of people are going be out of their houses and I would really appreciate it if there's anything anybody can do to help."
Today, Josh sent out a tweet saying, "Thanks to everyone who has Minot in their prayers & for donations. They really need your help. http://www.minotredcross.org."
"I've been watching it all morning on the computer," Josh tells Mark. "They have a live feed on the Internet; I've been watching and it's just unbelievable, because I know that town inside and out. I grew up there and all these -- my junior high, my favorite pizza place, the university I went to -- it's all gonna be under water. Not just a little bit -- like under water, so it's major. It's a big deal especially for all those people that I love back in Minot and just I'm thinking about them."
Josh says he plans to organize a fundraising event similar to the one the Red Cross held earlier this year in Santa Monica, CA, for Japan relief.
"Unfortunately, I can't get home for like a month … but later this year we're going to do a big fundraiser and raise as much money for the Red Cross as we can," says Josh. "But for right now a lot of people are out of their houses and need shelter."