NEW ORLEANS — Less than two weeks ago, local volunteers gathered up food, fuel, and generators and headed East to help people in Hurricane Helene’s path. Now, with Hurricane Milton closing in, they are getting ready to do it again.
The back-to-back storms present unique challenges for helpers, though they say they are up to the task.
“We’re blessed to go out and serve people,” said Peter Estrella, a One Voice NOLA board member and volunteer, “It takes a community to help others and we're willing to do that.”
One Voice NOLA returned from Valdosta, Georgia this past Sunday. Founder Jamey Lutz said his team served more than 6,000 hot meals to Helene victims. “You could tell people, they were in a bad, bad way, needing food. And they just kept coming and coming, and every day we'd run out of meals,” said Lutz.
Now, the group is having to restock donated supplies in just a few days to help future Milton victims. “We’re getting stuff in, we’re hoping more people can be a partner and donate,” said Estrella.
They are also looking for more sets of hands to come to Florida, as are many other aid organizations.
The Louisiana Red Cross is seeking volunteers to work at shelters. Burk Hughes, the Red Cross’s Disaster Programs Manager, spoke with WWL Louisiana over the phone from a shelter in Asheville, North Carolina.
“As they would rescue somebody from the floods, they would bring them here and drop them off,” he said, “They had, at one time, about 500 people, and today there's about 250.”
He explained that Red Cross volunteers are typically deployed for two weeks at a time. That means many are still responding to Helene-ravaged areas, and many more will be needed for Milton.
“If Milton is as bad as they're projecting it to be we'll need another whole set of volunteers to take over for the volunteers there now because after two weeks you're pretty exhausted from working a disaster,” said Hughes.
If you would like to sign up for Red Cross volunteer training, click here. To volunteer with or donate to One Voice NOLA, click here.
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