Local woman returns home after helping hurricane victims in Florida

CHUBBUCK – A local woman is back home after helping communities impacted by two major hurricanes.

Kris Mullen, an American Red Cross volunteer from Chubbuck, went to Tallahassee, Florida from September 27 to October 11 to assist people recovering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

The storm made landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast with 140 mph winds on Sept. 26. When Mullen arrived, she was surprised to find a community that was battered, but not broken.

“I was blown away by the resilience (of the affected communities),” Mullen said.

While Mullen was in Florida, Hurricane Milton also hit the state as a Category 3 storm.

Responding in the immediate wake of the storm brought a level of uncertainty to her deployment. Many communities experienced major wind damage and flooding and she wasn’t sure if there would be electricity in the area.

“There were miles of power lines that were down,” Mullen explains. “There were trees that had fallen on homes and roofs that were clearly impacted.”

Providing hurricane victims with food, water and medical aid was the immediate need, and it was a real challenge.

Later on, she helped distribute emergency supplies, focusing more on recovery items.

“We worked with municipalities as well as individuals to give things like rakes and gloves and bleach to help people clean up their homes, or to help organizations mobilize and clean up areas that were impacted by Helene,” Mullen said.

At the end of her deployment, she helped the area prepare for Milton’s landfall.

“The last thing we did was help to set up … evacuation shelters for people preparing for that second hurricane. And so we distributed water and items for those shelters as well,” Mullen said.

This isn’t the first time Mullen has traveled to help hurricane victims. She went to Florida two years ago when Hurricane Ian struck Cayo Costa. That time, she didn’t arrive until two weeks after the initial storm.

Despite the destruction brought on by Helene, Mullen was surprised to see how prepared some communities were for the impacts of the hurricane.

“There was just this amazing response by the communities themselves,” Mullen said. “They clearly had a level of preparation that I super admired.”

In one community, there were people at the island’s bridge who provided responders with a list of people in the community who needed aid the most.

As Mullen and the other responders provided aid to impacted communities, she saw hope among people that “things would be okay.”

“There was camaraderie with people relying on their neighbors, on their resources,” Mullen said. “To see the resilience of communities helping each other and pulling together … was my favorite part.”