The American Red Cross Hawaii Region is deploying volunteers to help with relief efforts in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
Eight Hawaii residents were already headed Thursday afternoon to the Sunshine State with another two from the Big Island expected to fly out Thursday night for a two-week deployment to Florida, and possibly other states in the region as Ian takes aim at the Eastern Seaboard. A third Big Island resident will be deployed by Saturday, at the latest.
“We are on the ground. Red Cross is on the ground,” said Marty Moran, Hawaii County’s American Red Cross disaster reserve manager, said Thursday of the organization’s national response to the region that’s likely to top 2,000 volunteers over the coming weeks and months. “Our primary mission down there will be sheltering and feeding.”
Hurricane Ian made landfall Wednesday afternoon in Southwest Florida as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane and one of the strongest storms ever to hit the U.S. It flooded homes on both the state’s coasts, knocked out electricity to 2.67 million Florida homes and businesses, and as of latest reports has left at least four dead.
Already, over 700 American Red Cross volunteers are working in shelters, where more than 33,000 evacuees have found refuge, according to the nonprofit. The number of people seeking shelter could increase in the coming days as power outages continue and people leave homes that are too damaged to stay in.
“There’s going to be thousands of people needing shelter, basically, 20% of the displaced population will end up in the shelter, the other 80% will go some place else,” said Moran, who after a career in law enforcement joined the Red Cross in the early 2000s, first deploying to Florida for Hurricane Charley in 2004.
That makes volunteers like Paul Davies and Cyndi Davies Wong critical, with more to be needed, as the relief and recovery effort for Hurricane Ian will likely span weeks, if not months. For example, here on Hawaii Island in 2018, according to Moran, the Red Cross sheltered people displaced by the Kilauea Volcano for 137 days — over 12 weeks.
Davies and Davies Wong, a husband-and-wife team from Kona, departed Thursday night from Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keahole headed on a 15- to 20-hour journey to Miami to support the relief effort. Davies Wong, who is the head nurse of the Red Cross Hawaii Region, will lead nurses at shelters across Florida while Davies will impart a lifetime of knowledge from a career in the corporate world during their two-week deployment.
“It’s a sense of both reciprocity and kuleana,” said Davies just hours before boarding their first flight. “Reciprocity because we were deployed during the Kilauea disaster operation back in 2018 and we received tremendous support from our mainland colleagues and in their time of need the least we can do is reciprocate and especially with the scope and the level of disaster they are dealing with — it’s the least we can do.”
Davies Wong started volunteering with the Red Cross in 2005 during the response to Hurricane Katrina. Since moving to the Big Island upon retirement, the couple has continued to volunteer for the Red Cross.
“We both believe that we’re getting so much living here that we want to give back and that means to help the people that came here and helped us in 2018 for months,” said Davies Wong, referring to organization’s response to the eruption of Kilauea volcano that destroyed hundreds of homes in Puna. “It’s really our pleasure and honor to do that.”
Davies Wong, who was honored as the region’s Volunteer of the Year 2022, hopes more people will join the Red Cross, particularly in Hawaii, which is so isolated from the mainland.
“I would love more people to be involved. Just do what you can because there’s a job and work for everybody — you don’t have to a have any special skills,” she said. “A smile, a warm presence can go a long way. And helping people, it doesn’t take a special skill — it takes compassion.”
Moran also encouraged those interested in becoming a Red Cross volunteer to apply by visiting redcross.org/volunteer.
“We can always use volunteers to prepare for the future. You may not get out this time, but what we always need on every major disaster are those people who are being sent out right now — they are the people that I call the ‘infantry of the Red Cross,” said Moran, explaining that like the Army, the Red Cross has many divisions. “Our infantry is shelter.”
And while it would take someone eager, a new volunteer who wants to assist in the Hurricane Ian response could be deployed within a couple of weeks, Moran said. The application process takes about a week and a half and training can be completed in an afternoon,.
“If someone really wants to go — and understand that this will be going on for months — we can always use sheltering people,” he said.
For those unable to make the trip, Moran encourages monetary donations over items because dollars get to relief effort quicker and the organization, through its contracts and connections, can usually make dollars go farther.
“The No. 1 thing is the dollar. Some one has to pay for it,” Moran said noting the organization’s disaster relief operation (DRO) level in Florida is seven of seven with Red Cross expenses likely to exceed $10 million. For reference, the agency’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 reached $2.5 billion while its relief efforts in 2004 when four storms hit Florida in six weeks hit $92 million.
To donate to help those affected by Hurricane Ian by donating to the American Red Cross at redcross.org/donate/hurricane-ian-donations.html.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Email Chelsea Jensen at cjensen@westhawaiitoday.com.
