By Cristina Maisel

Some American Red Cross volunteers deploy with their significant others, but this story is about two people who found each other in the middle of disaster.

Kat Walsh, a disaster mental health volunteer from York, Pa., had taken a year-long sabbatical from her university so she could serve wherever she was needed. Her first on‑the‑ground deployment was after Hurricane Ian in 2022, in Fort Myers, where she worked out of a FEMA tent.

“There wasn’t a space for me,” she said. “So I made my own space — right next to this guy.”

“That guy” was Rich Byam, a Red Crosser from Massachusetts, on his second Hurricane Ian deployment. He had already spent three weeks working in a shelter during the immediate aftermath. On this assignment, he served as a shelter resident transition caseworker, helping people in Red Cross shelters connect with resources, overcome roadblocks and create individualized action plans to move forward.

Kat and Rich spent long hours together in the field — especially in the car, with Rich "driving Miss Kat" from place to place as they worked through the community’s needs.

“We were spending like 18 hours a day together, literally in the most challenging situations,” Kat said. “And I thought, ‘Well, I didn’t want to murder him like most people after spending that much time together!’ So we were really good friends, and then months later, we started dating.”

Since then, they’ve often deployed to the same places, though not always at the same time. Rich’s sheltering work often means he arrives early in the response, while Kat frequently supports the mental health and recovery side of later phases.

For Kat, her work reveals something powerful:

“In a disaster, it is that kind of crisis that fosters community resilience and brings people together for a common good. Often, we don’t see that under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, it requires a crisis or disaster to bring people together. So I get to see people in their worst moment — but a lot of times, behaving their best.”

Rich came to the Red Cross after retiring from state government. The idea had first taken root years earlier, when a coworker told him he was heading to help after Hurricane Katrina.

“I didn’t even know the Red Cross did that,” Rich said. “I thought, that's an amazing thing to do. At the time, I couldn’t have done that, but after I retired, I contacted the Red Cross and said I’d like to do disaster recovery.”