MAINE, USA — The Red Cross has thousands of volunteers from across the country already stationed in Florida as Hurricane Ian makes landfall. Thousands more are expected to arrive once travel reopens.
Two volunteers currently on the ground helping those forced to evacuate their homes are from Maine.
"Right now, we're at an evacuation shelter in Tampa at [a] high school," Ann Cibelli said.
Ann and her husband Bob, of Acton, Maine, are both stationed at Sickles High School in Tampa, which has become an emergency evacuation shelter. The couple says the shelter is run by the state of Florida, and supported by Red Cross.
"There are about 450 people at the evacuation shelter that we're feeding, housing, taking care of," Bob Cibelli said.
The Cibelli's are volunteers with Red Cross Northern New England.
According to Red Cross Regional Disaster Officer for Northern New England John Montes, there are roughly 12 volunteers from Northern New England already on the ground in Florida, and another 10 are on standby and expected to travel there in the coming days.
"Donations and volunteering are the two best ways you can help right now," Montes said.
Montes said Red Cross NNE is also collecting donations to help fund the response to the hurricane, along with preparing response items like vehicles that might be needed to assist in Florida.
Montes added volunteers from New England are already supporting the recovery effort virtually.
"We have volunteers from Maine right now virtually supporting [the] incident, be it taking phone calls, supporting the IT network, helping with mobilization and logistics of getting people mobilized," Montes said.
Montes also said that donations are crucial as this will likely be an extensive and expensive recovery effort.
The Cibelli's are on a two-week deployment and are expected to continue supporting emergency shelter operations during that time. The couple said they are honored to be helping.
It's their second time volunteering with the Red Cross for hurricane response after traveling to New Jersey to support the relief efforts for Hurricane Ida in 2021.
"We both recently retired and knew that we wanted to give back and do something that we could [do] together, and do something that we didn't really have the time needed," Ann Cibelli said.
You can learn more and donate by visiting RedCross.org.