Volunteers work to ensure those in storms’ paths have access to medications in Helene, Milton wake

FLORIDA — With Hurricane Milton continuing across the State of Florida, one aid group is working to get ahead of it when it comes to getting people in the storm’s path what they need.

Channel 2′s Linda Stouffer spoke to volunteers and workers with Direct Relief who are on a mission to get medication to people who need it to survive while living through severe, dangerous weather like Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

Thomas Tighe, the CEO of Direct Relief, said their volunteers were pre-positioned to help with hurricane relief ahead of Milton making landfall.

“This is the emergency medical pack that DirectRelief developed,” Tighe showed Stouffer in a virtual call. “Professional first aid kit. It contains wound care, pulse, oximeters, stethoscopes, those are the couple of dozen here. Hundreds more waiting to be delivered.”

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Tighe said Direct Relief uses general movement data from Facebook and its parent company Meta to see where people are actually in crisis.

The day after the storm, Tighe’s staff and the volunteers will start driving bodes with the relief packs from Tallahassee, the Florida capital, to areas that took heavy hits from Milton.

The boxes also have critical prescription medications, according to Direct Relief. Tighe said most of the prescriptions were for long-term illnesses and other medical needs.

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“I think typically what we’ve seen and this goes all the way back to Hurricane Katrina, the people who are managed, trying to manage their chronic health conditions like diabetes,’ Tighe said. “If you are dependent on insulin and you don’t have it, if you need an inhaler and you don’t have it, that’s a crisis immediately. And if chest pains, if you’re hypertensive, those are the kind of things that if managed, you can do fine. If unmanaged can become a health crisis.”

He said the nonprofit is accredited to distribute prescriptions in all 50 states and they do it free of charge with two nonprofit community health centers and free and charitable clinics.

While they’re based in California, Direct Relief said they’re working nonstop to support impacted residents in North Carolina after Hurricane Helene and now Florida, plus other disasters all over the world.

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