By Jay Lawrence, Volunteer

It was the picture that got him.  Five-year-old Lane Guidroz drew it and described it - his house surrounded by water, along with a handprint and a heart and a boy’s sad face. The boy was sad because Nate Fine was leaving, going home to Georgia after providing food and water to Lane and his family, day after day, in Galliano, LA.

“I just couldn’t leave these people,” Fine said.  “These families just touched my heart.”  

So Fine, a Red Cross volunteer from LaGrange didn’t leave. He extended his stay and kept helping the families in Galliano, among many communities destroyed by Hurricane Ida. Lane’s house was only flooded – another nearby had washed away, and the home of the family of eight, including young children, was now a tarp-covered shed in the back yard.

Fine can’t wait to go out and help again. “When I’m on deployment,” he said, “I feel like my favorite Marvel superhero Captain America. I’m making families’ lives better.”

And this hero wasn’t alone.  Georgia volunteers seemed to be everywhere after Ida.  More than 60 kept rotating through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and even New York. And they came back with stories.

Mystery Tents – And Ready to Learn to Drive an Emergency Response Vehicle

Why would you need several dozen tents when you’ve already got a fine Red Cross staff shelter in a warehouse in Houma, LA? Are even more Red Cross volunteers on the way?

That’s what Nancy Duncan was wondering during her first deployment as an Emergency Response Vehicle helper – just like Fine - delivering food to other wiped-out areas in Louisiana like Gonzales and Grand Isle.  “What the heck are we supposed to do with those?” she and her friends asked themselves.

But there was a plan. And under shelter manager Vivian McWilliams, another Georgia volunteer from Atlanta, the EZ-UP tents soon became bedrooms – actually cot rooms – with privacy and individual power strips for each volunteer.  “Everyone felt it turned out pretty well,” Duncan said.

A shelter worker in two previous deployments, Duncan got to see close up how valuable mobile food deliveries were.  She learned a lot, from those like Georgia volunteers Connie and Mark Fleetwood of Moultrie, and from legends like Ezekiel “Memo”  Alejandro of Connecticut, whose volunteer number has just two digits. Duncan’s has seven.

Not necessarily a big fan of driving a truck, Duncan (who just moved to Greenville, S.C.) was ready to qualify to drive an ERV herself.  “They really need drivers and I think I can do that,” she said.

Why does she volunteer?  “It fills my soul,” she said, “to know that I’m a tiny piece in getting families’ lives back to normal after they lost everything.”

A Serendipitous Reunion

While Duncan was on her fifth deployment, Doodle  Eubanks of Manchester has deployed more than 70 times. 

Eubanks does at least a half-dozen things for the Red Cross but he was in his favorite role as part of LSAP – the Life Safety and Asset Protection team.

At a shelter in Harvey, LA, Eubanks was surprised to run into Jennifer Pipa, until recently Georgia Red Cross CEO and now Vice President of Disaster Operations at national headquarters in Washington, D.C. “She made it a point to stop and talk to me,” he said. “She wanted to hear what was going on.  It was great.  She said Georgia will always be her home.”

Volunteers Back Home Help Ida Evacuees Back in Georgia, other volunteers were busy as waves of Ida evacuees fled to the Peach State.  Some 1,200 families and individuals reached out to the Georgia Red Cross for help.  

Twenty Red Crossers were on hand on a Saturday in September to greet evacuees arriving at a respite center in the Greater Atlanta headquarters on Monroe Drive. Another respite center had operated for several days in LaGrange.  In both cases, caseworkers had already given counsel by phone, advising the evacuees of Red Cross shelters near home and helping them find other resources available through partners like FEMA.

Over two weeks, Red Cross volunteers at the two respite centers provided everything from blankets to diapers to ready-to-eat meals to toy animals - and essential gas assistance - to 600 families as they headed home.

John Snowden and his partner Tina Bass, both hospitality workers in New Orleans, were among them.  “The storms strike and you guys are rolling,” said Snowden. “So many times the Red Cross is right there.”

Added Marietta volunteer Betty Blessing, helping with her husband Joseph. “This fulfills such a great need. It’s a lifeline. Some of these folks are so strapped, and they’re very grateful.”

If you’d like to join the Red Cross volunteer team or make a donation to help their work, go to www.redcross.org or call 1-800-REDCROSS.