CARIBOU, Maine — There’s little time to rest for Bill Thomas and Mary Green, who are preparing for a second deployment after respectively returning from Texas and Georgia to aid victims of Tropical Storms Harvey and Irma.
Thomas, 68, of Woodland, caught himself saying “y’all” after spending a couple weeks helping out the storm victims of Beaumont, Texas.
During his decade of service to the Red Cross, Thomas has traveled most of the country. His first two deployments were to Long Island, New York, to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy, which struck in November 2012. He has since helped the residents of Columbia, South Carolina, recover from the 1,000 year flood in October 2015, and later traveled to South Carolina to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Matthe, which hit the East Coast in October 2016. Thomas even traveled to Flint, Michigan, in response to the water crisis.
Thomas will be deployed once again on Oct. 4, and said he currently does not know where he will go, or if he will be responding to a hurricane, tornado, flood, or other natural disaster.
To put the scale of recent disasters in perspective, Thomas said the Red Cross usually takes volunteers closest to a disaster and spreads out from there. Even after recruiting Thomas from over 2,000 miles away, Red Cross resources in Texas were still spread thin.
“The policy is to have two ERV (Emergency Response Vehicle) drivers per vehicle and we had to split up and have on person drive each vehicle once we got there,” Thomas said.
Similarly, Aroostook County Red Cross Community Manager Mary Green traveled over 1,500 miles to Waycross, Georgia, to help the victims of Tropical Storm Irma.
Green has 17 years of community service under her belt, and said the recent deployment is among the most rewarding work she’s done.
Like Thomas, Green’s time back in The County will be short as she will be heading out to Puerto Rico on Sept. 30 to help victims of Hurricane Maria.
While in Georgia, Green was part of a mobile strike team, which can switch its tasks to best fit the present situation.
For Green, the first-hand experience of helping Hurricane Irma victims demonstrated the resilience and kindness of people affected by great tragedies.
“After [conducting a damage assessment], I sat in a car with a woman who couldn’t even get into her house,” Green said. “She had nothing, yet she was concerned about my well-being. People in shelters would take what little supplies were available and still share them with one another.”
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- Bill Thomas (front, left), 68, of Woodland poses in early September with Louisiana’s Lady Cajuns soccer team, who brought donations of bottled water and clothes to assist the victims of Hurricane Harvey in Texas. (Courtesy of the Red Cross)
“I saw the best in people during those hard times,” Green said. “It was a beautiful experience.”
When he wasn’t busy working a shelter or feeding unit, Thomas made a point to fill Texans’ downtime with levity.
“I was talking to one lady who said she was told not to do any cleaning or fixing up until FEMA inspects her home,” Thomas recalled. “She said, ‘My trailer got washed down into the river; how are they gonna inspect that?’”
“I told her to have them send a dive team,” Thomas said, “and she started laughing. It was the first time she’d laughed since the storm hit.”
While Thomas was working on the feeding unit, he said a 4-year-old girl, accompanied by her grandmother, asked him for a hug.
“I looked at the grandmother and she motioned that it was OK,” Thomas said, “so I gave her a hug and told her never to hug a stranger unless nana’s there and says it’s OK, and the grandmother had a big smile on her face.”
Thomas said Red Cross workers and volunteers are “not required to report anything” about the people they are serving, which ultimately encourages more people to seek aid.
“If someone came out and said that they were an illegal alien, not that we’d even ask, I’m not required to report that,” Thomas said. “If they say they want a meal, they get a meal — no questions asked. If they need shelter, they get shelter — no questions asked. If you have to start reporting everything, then people aren’t going to get the help they need.”
“If I saw someone trying to grab a kid off the street,” Thomas added, “then yeah, I’d get involved.”
Thomas said there is no limit to how long volunteers can deploy, but he returned to The County for a doctor’s appointment and to chop wood for the winter.
“I’ve got another cord to put in,” Thomas said. “I just talked to my disaster program manager and told him I’d be ready to leave again Wednesday of next week and go wherever they need me.”
Green said she’s sure her experience in Puerto Rico will be just as eye-opening as her time in Georgia, as she will be joining another strike team.
Before leaving, she said, “I’m nervous and scared, but excited for the challenge.”
Green added that she will “probably be sleeping on the ground” while she’s there, as Puerto Rico is without power and water.
Both Green and Thomas already have seen vast amounts of damage in Georgia and Texas, with Green saying it “wasn’t unusual to go on some streets and see practically everything someone owned outside on the sidewalk.”
Thomas said he’s met people whose homes were “completely underwater” because of Harvey, but one of the worst aspects of the storm was the power loss causing so many people to lose all of their refrigerated food.
For those affected by Harvey, Irma, or Maria, Thomas said it’s important to stay optimistic.
“Keep your spirits up and look for the positive,” Thomas said. “It’s there somewhere, even though it might be hard to find at times.”
While deployed, Green said she’s not only representing the American Red Cross, but also Aroostook County.
“I love representing Aroostook County,” Green said. “People think it’s hard to make a difference when you live in such a small place. The County is full of the most kind, loving, and supporting people you will ever meet, and I bring all of them with me when I go.”
