Locals lend aid in devastated areas of Kentucky
Two volunteers from Southwest Florida were among the many who headed to Kentucky to provide a helping hand after the devastating floods.
David Rushty, from Fort Myers, and Bryon Ek, from North Fort Myers, are volunteers with the American Red Cross South Florida Region. They assisted with distributing food to those in need.
Rushty, a regional feeding lead for South Florida, catering company owner and in-home chef, has helped with feeding those in need in this region. As the lead, he is in charge of the Gulf Coast five counties, Palm Beach, Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
“I do have people on the ground in each chapter office that do cover some of the stuff that I don’t have to handle,” he said, adding that he does pre-disaster work with local, feeding, vendors to try to work with communities prior to a disaster. “I try to support the local community and seek out smaller caterers and businesses and really help support them.”
Rushty said Red Cross is responsible for the first 72 hours. They mobilize a feeding party through World Central Kitchen, Operation BBQ and Southern Baptist. They also have non-binding contracts in place with local vendors, as it helps when needing to feed people.
In Kentucky, they used food from Operation BBQ, which went to the shelters to accommodate those utilizing the service, while Red Cross’s Emergency Response Vehicles traveled into the affected communities delivering food twice a day to those living in their homes.
There were 14 vehicles running when Rushty first arrived with three people in each.
One of those Emergency Response Vehicle drivers was Ek of North Fort Myers.
“I was eager, I guess, to get started and start helping people and meeting people,” he said in a pre-recorded interview.
He said traveling to Kentucky has been the most humbling experience he has had.
“It’s unbelievable devastation. Some places look like a tornado, or a hurricane has been through there and some places look completely normal, but you go inside and there has been a foot of water and the house has been destroyed. They have to air out and dry out. They look untouched and then things are upside down, houses and cars and mud in trees, power and bridges completely washed out, sitting in the middle of the river 500 yards away from where they used to be,” he said.
Even when exhaustion strikes, Ek said you get your second wind as you have a buddy working alongside you, which goes a long way.
“It’s really an eye-opening experience. Very humbling knowing you are helping people. We get a lot of hugs and a lot of thank yous. It’s been an amazing experience. It has changed me. It’s indescribable. I now have a passion to do this. Before I was curious to do this,” he said.
With the training Rushty has, his regional boss called him in and asked him to help with the flooding disaster in Kentucky. With flooding, businesses closed, as well as only a certain amount of food choices available due to disaster supply chain issues, he said they were using Operation BBQ to feed people.
When Rushty first arrived, they were feeding 14 shelters, which went down to five on Aug. 19. He said it is a testament to people getting back on their feet.
When Rushty arrived Aug. 13 they were feeding 3,000 people, which has gone down to under 1,000 people per day. He said on Aug. 19 they were feeding probably 400 people in five shelters.
“I like to assess the situation myself . . . face-to-face contact with my drivers, people and the feeding site,” he said, adding that he was out in the field three times out of the six days.
One of those feeding sites was 90 minutes to an hour and 45 minutes away at a state park. Rushty said they will remain there for another four weeks. From the headquarters in Lexington to the feeding site, it was a two to two and a half hour commute.
The command center was set up in Lexington, which has both its perks and downfalls, as it is two hours away from the disaster zone.
“You have to communicate with the teams in the field,” he said.
The damage was devastating. Rushty saw debris on the top of trees as water rose 18 to 20 feet up. He said he also saw vehicles and homes carried to other locations.
The experience has been both humbling and informative.
“From a professional and feeding standpoint, the work I have been doing in South Florida is so important,” Rushty said. “From a personal standpoint it has been great to meet people from all over the country. This is my first deployment outside of the region. You get to see how different regions do business and things are a little different.”
In other regions, relationships are not set up and there are a couple of areas in which it is very difficult to deliver food, he said.
He has gone through simulations and training, which has kept him in contact with people on a weekly basis. Rushty said that an experience like that in Kentucky changes your perspective and shows you the brotherhood you have.
“Everyone comes together and wants to help people,” Rushty said, adding that with everything going on in the world today it is great to see everyone band together to help those in dire need of assistance. “Everybody wants to stay longer and keep going. It changes your life to see the amount of assistance and what assistance does to people. No one wants to take a day off . . . people still need a day off.”
In addition, there is nothing quite like first- hand experience, as it translates much different than reading information from a manual. Rushty said there are always variables leaving the need to be incredibly flexible.
“Not every plan is going to work. Everything changes by the minute,” he said.