CARIBOU, Maine — Mary Green has 17 years of community service experience, and says her recent deployment to help victims of Hurricane Irma has been the “most rewarding work” she has done so far.
Green, who works in Caribou as Aroostook County’s Red Cross community manager, flew to Georgia on Sunday with three other volunteers from Maine.
After landing in Atlanta, Green and about 64 Red Cross workers had to stay at Camp Grace, an overnight camp for inner-city children, in Roberta to wait out the storm.
“They opened up the camp to all of us, provided food and shelter, and did it all with a smile,” Green said. “It was amazing. We lost power, but they still managed to get us fed and give us a warm, dry place to sleep. We were grateful to be at Camp Grace.”
Once the storm cleared, Green and other members of the Red Cross strike team headed to Waycross in southeastern Georgia to help shelter those who lost their homes to the storm.
The Irma Strike Team, according to Green, is able to switch tasks whenever necessary and does not focus on one specific aspect of helping victims of the natural disaster.
“With the strike team, we go wherever we need,” Green said. “We’ve had our orders changed within an hour, and it’s a really unique experience to Red Cross. Instead of being task-specific, we can just go in wherever we’re needed.
Green said the experience in Waycross was unforgettable.
“I met a woman who had been homeless and just got her first apartment three months ago,” Green said. “It was destroyed by Irma.”
Green said it was “eye opening” to witness the camaraderie on display in Georgia, and how refugees quickly formed bonds with one another.
“I met a family who lost everything in Florida, and they were contemplating where to go next,” Green said, adding that it was a scenario she couldn’t fathom.
“This family had already been through another disaster,” Green said, adding that she wasn’t sure, but she thought it had been a fire. “For a lot of people there, this was not their first disaster.”
Though Green has specialized in helping others for nearly two decades, she says this is the first time she’s traveled this far for the Red Cross.
On Thursday, Green said she was on the road for Savannah, where she and the other strike team members were to perform a disaster assessment. Due to the nature of the team, Green said she was unsure where she would be for the rest of her deployment, and added that the group might end up helping victims in Florida as well.
Green said she and the Maine team would be heading back home on Sunday, Sept. 24.
