Chicago-area organizations mobilize for Hurricane Milton relief efforts
CHICAGO - When Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday night, the race to mobilize resources and life-saving support had already been underway for several days.
Between evacuation shelters and emergency services, the situation is all hands on deck, and Chicago-area volunteers are dropping everything at home to head for the disaster zone.
The American Red Cross currently has more than 2,000 trained disaster volunteers and staff members on the ground across Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Some of them are from Chicagoland and have been assisting in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
This week, 60 additional volunteers from Illinois are on their way to Florida to lend a helping hand amid Hurricane Milton.
"We currently have evacuation shelters ready where we had 32,000 people staying in those last night," said Mara Thompson, communications manager, Red Cross of Illinois.
In addition to evacuation shelters, the Red Cross has also established longer-term shelters for residents who have lost their homes.
"We’re basically in a state of continuous response," said Thompson. "It’s just all about mobilizing the volunteers so that we can get help to the people who need it most as soon as possible."
ComEd is also no stranger to rapid response efforts. On Wednesday morning, 60 underground employees, along with support staff, left for Florida to assist in restoration work.
There, they will work alongside Tampa Electric to repair expected outages.
"We’re going into uncharted territories. We’re not really sure what exactly we’re going to see when we get there, but we have to anticipate the infrastructure is going to be devastated," said Nichole Owens, ComEd VP of Distribution Operations.
Additionally, when 200 other Chicago lineworkers who are currently in Georgia and South Carolina finish their work, they will be redeployed to areas affected by Milton.
MABAS-Illinois is also gearing up to assist in hurricane recovery efforts.
The statewide mutual aid response system for fires, EMS, and other specialized incidents deployed local teams to Florida on Wednesday night. Members who are on their way come from 27 area fire departments. On the ground, one of their main missions will be to look for survivors.
"They’re using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology with mapping to annotate every building that was there," said Operations Section Chief Kevin Lyne of MABAS-Illinois.
This follows a two-week mission in North Carolina that 24 MABAS-Illinois members representing 17 Chicago area fire agencies just completed.
Those crews are traveling back to Illinois, expected to arrive at MABAS-Illinois headquarters in Wheeling on Thursday afternoon.
"They were finding people in trees, in different locations in houses, on top of rooftops," said Lyne. "You’re bringing that person into the boat; you’re saving that person’s life. There’s meaning to that."
Officials with the Red Cross of Illinois said everyone can contribute to the life-saving effort by donating blood, no matter where they live. Through Halloween, donors will receive a $10 Amazon gift card and be entered to win one of three $5,000 gift cards.
"Ahead of the hurricanes that we knew were incoming, we had actually sent a big supply of blood to Florida because there are still people in hospitals there that are going to need transfusions," said Thompson. "So, if people are able to go out and donate blood right now, that will help us with blood around the nation, which the Red Cross supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood supply. You don’t need to know your blood type, you don’t have to have ever given blood before, it’s really simple."
To learn more about donating blood through the American Red Cross, or to make an appointment, click here.