LENEXA, Kan. — As hurricane concerns heighten along the Gulf Coast, relief efforts mount up.
Nonprofits in the Kansas City metro are preparing to send aid to the South. Hurricane Laura, which reached Category 4 on Thursday, is expected to make landfall early Thursday in Louisiana. It’s expected to leave a trail of destruction in its path.
Once the effects of Hurricane Laura take shape, Kansas City area agencies such as Heart to Heart International are ready to go.
Dan Neal, the nonprofit’s vice president, said a team of people will leave for Texas on Thursday. Neal said COVID-19’s continuing threat presents a concern his volunteers have never considered.
“We have a plan for how many people are going to travel together in vehicles. In the past, we’ve piled our team into a church basement or other spaces and everyone would sleep on the floor together. With COVID-19, that’s no longer possible,” Neal said Wednesday.
Heart to Heart International’s trademark hygiene kits are already packed, and its mobile medical unit will be used in response to Laura.
Neal said Heart to Heart’s volunteers will use extra personal protective equipment, and traveling workers will be required to pass a COVID-19 test before leaving Lenexa on Thursday afternoon.
“If we’re down there helping folks, and one of our team members comes down sick, and we feel like they have COVID-19, our entire team will have to go into quarantine, and that would basically stop our mission,” Neal explained.
The American Red Cross will send a team of 20 Kansas City-based workers to hurricane territory, many of whom will depart on Friday.
Oscar Peterson, a damage assessment manager based in Kansas City, said the typical gymnasium shelter that’s been used in the past won’t work amid a pandemic.
“Because of COVID, we can’t do that. We’ll typically put people in hotels, so long as there is hotel capacity. If we have to revert back to congregant sheltering, it will look much different than what we’ve known it to be,” Petersen said.
A Red Cross spokesperson said the nonprofit is performing daily medical checkups on its traveling volunteers assigned to the Gulf Coast.
