Firefighters, Red Cross volunteers from Chicago area pitch in as Florida reels from Hurricane Milton
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Volunteers, electricians, and first responders from across the country are making their way to Florida to provide relief after Hurricane Milton left parts of the state ravaged.
Chicago area firefighters, and local volunteers from the American Red Cross, are among those who have hit the ground.
The work in Florida is an all-hands-on-deck effort, with no timeline on when things could get back to normal. But now that Hurricane Milton has gone off into the Atlantic Ocean, volunteers are ready.
"I want to get out there, you know what I mean?" said Red Cross volunteer Sam Pulia, the former mayor of the west Chicago suburb of Westchester. "I'm anxious, I guess."
Pulia arrived in Chicago Tuesday for his first deployment with the Red Cross. He has been in back-to-back trainings before being sent to man a shelter on Thursday.
"They're going to set us up in teams of six—two supervisors, and four service associates like myself, and tell us where we're going—and we get there," Pulia said.
While there, Pulia hopes to provide a listening ear.
"Someone is going to look at us, and they see our red vests—they see that we're Red Cross—and we're going to be helpful," he said. "We're going to be compassionate. We're going to hear them."
Meanwhile, firefighters who make up the Mutual Aid Box Alarm System, or MABAS, were en route to Ocala, Florida, to provide relief Thursday.
"In total we have 68, a total of 15 fire engines. We have around eight to 10 utility vehicles towing multiple different trailers with supplies," said MABAS strike team leader Sam Foster. "It's quite a convoy coming out here."
This was Foster's first hurricane deployment with MABAS.
"We signed up for a mission to help people, and that's what we're here to do," he said. "So when we get down there, I'm not quite sure exactly what we're going to be tasked with. It could be fighting fires, emergency medical response, or it could be humanitarian aid. It doesn't really matter."
One person who will not need assistance however, is Brooke Klinker—who has been training for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon.
"You're first thinking of what's going to happen with the storm. You don't know what the destruction is going to be," said Klinker. "But then you're also like, I've been training all of these months for this race, and I really want to go, so I didn't know what was going to happen."
Klinker rode out the storm in Florida, and hopes she can board a flight in the morning so she can participate in her first Chicago Marathon.
"I am running for Red Cross this year because of what has happened in past hurricanes. I thought it was a fitting charity. I'm fortunate I didn't have the destruction," Klinker said, "so since I am able to run and get there, I wanted to do that."
It will be interesting to find out how many runners for the marathon make it to Chicago from Florida.
Meanwhile, it was unclear late Thursday how long Pulia with the Red Cross would remain in Florida. The firefighters from MABAS could be there up to 14 days.
