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FOR A GOOD CAUSE
A helping hand where it's needed most
LOCAL RED CROSS VOLUNTEER ASSISTS WITH HURRICANE IAN RECOVERY
Kate Hill
E
arlier this month, Cazenovia resident Anne Saltman returned from Florida, where she worked with the American Red Cross on its hurricane recovery efforts. Saltman, a Red Cross volunteer, was recruited on Sept. 26 for a two-week deployment to Orlando in preparation for a massive hurricane expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida. With just 24 hours to pack and prepare, she set out to join a group of volunteers tasked with caring for an influx of homeless families at a Red Cross shelter. Saltman explained that she joined the Red Cross after researching the effects of climate change and deciding she wanted to help families impacted by strong storm events. “After several months of coursework and planning, this would be my first deployment,” said Saltman, who was deployed as a mass care/ sheltering service associate. “As I packed my red and white Red Cross vest, I felt confident, well-prepared, eager to help, and proud to be associated with a well-respected humanitarian organization.”
Saltman described the Orlando airport as bustling with anxious families trying to leave before the storm’s arrival and soldiers, electricians, road crews, and others headed into the area as first responders. All the hotels in the region were at full capacity, filled with families seeking safety. Many of the hotel employees, however, had left the city. As a result, her hotel had limited meal options that were served on paper plates with plastic utensils. Saltman recalled that the hotel
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halls were busy with anxious guests, many of whom had brought their dogs; one man arrived with five. To distract the hotel’s younger guests, a large ballroom was made available as a play area. According to the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Hurricane Ian made landfall near Cayo Costa in southwestern Florida on Sept. 28 as “a dangerous, high-end Category 4 storm after plowing a path of destruction
through the Caribbean, bringing particularly heavy rainfall and dangerous surf to Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and western Cuba. After crossing over the Florida peninsula, where it had weakened to a tropical storm, it strengthened again over the water to a Category 1 hurricane and made a second landfall near Georgetown, South Carolina.” The hurricane hit the Orlando area with what Saltman described as a relentless howling wind, thunder, lightning and pounding
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