The emergency response team, checking in on patients in a rural Florida community Wednesday morning, were worried — in general, of course, but about one woman in particular.
Hurricane Helene, sweeping across the southeastern U.S., had caused health crises on all sides. Providers at Oceana Community Health, Inc., a community clinic in central Florida, had spent the last few days on the road in a mobile medical unit, setting up mobile clinics in hard-hit communities throughout the area.
Everywhere they went, people — some of them established patients at the clinic, some of them strangers — showed up in urgent need of insulin or other chronic disease medications, said Dr. Youssef Motii, Oceana’s executive director. People without electricity to power their medical devices were experiencing acute respiratory symptoms. Patients who had been recovering from existing wounds had walked through contaminated floodwaters. Water-borne infections were on the rise.
Oceana’s emergency response specialists went out to look for some of their most vulnerable patients on foot. Once they found them, Dr. Motii explained, they’d connect to a physician via satellite to assess needs and treatments.
One patient — an unhoused woman who’d survived a series of diabetic emergencies and was working diligently with Oceana’s staff to improve her blood sugar levels — wasn’t where they thought she’d be. On Wednesday morning, emergency responders came across her belongings — including storm-damaged insulin.
When Dr. Motii spoke to Direct Relief on Wednesday afternoon, the patient had been found only three hours before. She was safe, and carrying a cooler she’d purchased at a gas station and filled with ice — to keep her remaining insulin cold. Seeing their patient alive and well, and witnessing her determination to keep her diabetes under control in the face of catastrophe, was a triumph for Oceana’s staff.
Beyond “The Hub”
Across Helene’s devastating path, community health providers and emergency responders have similar stories to share.
They talk about the people they encounter who weren’t able to evacuate, or who can’t reach the community hubs where necessities like water, food, and hygiene items are being offered. They go where officials and community leaders tell them the need is most urgent — although, as Dr. Motii said, it’s often a “cat-and-mouse game” to find paths through flooded, mud-choked, or debris-strewn roads to rural churches or community centers.
No matter what the news reports say or the social media pictures show when disaster strikes, “we never go in without an invitation and a request for help,” said Jamie Swezey, a program director at the Footprint Project. The nonprofit, a close partner of Direct Relief, provides clean energy to communities in the wake of disaster, and working with locals to determine needs and response measures is pivotal.
In the wake of Helene, Swezey said, there’s been no shortage of requests.
Swezey and her team were in Asheville, North Carolina on Sunday morning, where the sheer scale of the devastation reminded her of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina. At a technical college with working electricity, people with respiratory devices and other powered medical equipment were clustered in the lobby.
Footprint Project had shown up to evaluate whether the site had enough power to support community members. But at the site, Swezey recalled, the fire department had just gotten a call from a local elder care facility. Their generator had gone out, and some of their residents were dependent on oxygen concentrators.
The team supplied batteries for the concentrators, and the facility administrators said “this probably saved four people’s lives today,” Swezey recalled.
But she was concerned about the widespread communications outages and the reliance on word of mouth. To keep in touch with the Footprint Project’s main office in New Orleans, the team was driving periodically to the top of a hill to access cell service, so they could receive requests for aid, give logistical updates, and check in on existing projects.
Checking in local health centers and clinics to offer energy support had been the planned next step, but Swezey had just received a request from another nursing home. Their water and power were out, but many of their residents had urgent medical needs. The Footprint Project team was planning to install an atmospheric water generator — a device that turns moisture in the air into, in this case, 100 gallons of potable water per day using solar power.
In general, Swezey explained, large-scale disaster responses often rely on a hub model, where resources like food, water, and medical care are available at a local distribution point. “The people who are the most vulnerable during a disaster are the people who can’t come to the hub and get the thing,” she said.
Her goal as a disaster responder was to reach those people.
“A display of bravery and character”
Oceana’s mobile health clinic, on its rounds in Florida, had been outfitted with wound care, medications, and diagnostic equipment like an EKG for triage and evaluation. Personal care products for displaced patients, and emergency medical backpacks intended for in-the-field care, were being sent from Direct Relief headquarters.
But Dr. Motii was clear that an emergency like Hurricane Helene takes a widespread toll — on staff and providers as well as patients.
A second mobile medical unit had been damaged during the hurricane — punctured by a fence post that left a gaping hole, water was seeping in, and the unit wouldn’t be safe until it had been painstakingly prepared. At one of Oceana’s clinics, high floods had submerged and ruined medical equipment and supplies. Cold-chain medicines like insulin had been destroyed by power outages.
Tending to the most urgent medical needs Helene had created also meant that routine care had been interrupted — a frequent outcome after natural disasters that can have negative impacts on health.
One nurse practitioner had reported to Dr. Motii that her house was almost completely submerged by the floodwaters and family members, struggling with their own health impacts, were displaced. He was surprised when she showed up for a mobile clinic shift anyway.
“God knows who’s going to show up for these patients” if she didn’t, was her reply.
She’s one of many staff who have been heavily impacted and come to work anyway, Dr. Motii reported.
“They have prioritized patient care for those who are drastically affected,” he said. “To see them showing up every day for us and for our patients…[is] such a display of bravery and character.”
Direct Relief has launched a large-scale response to Hurricane Helene, committing an initial $250,000 in emergency funding and sending shipments of field medic packs, tetanus vaccines, water purification tablets, and essential medications and supplies to a number of nonprofit health partners. Mobile medical units funded by Direct Relief, including Oceana’s, are providing medical care in impacted areas throughout the southeastern U.S.
An operational overview of Direct Relief’s Helene response, including the organization’s Hurricane Preparedness and Safety Net Support Programs, is available here.
