Brandon man helps FEMA hurricane relief efforts in FL

Florida was nearly out of fuel and people were fighting over water and food when Brandon resident Mike Kloth headed south to help with Hurricane Irma relief efforts last month. 

Kloth was part of a group of about 30 employees of Estes Express Lines who spent 12 days outside Orlando dispersing truckloads of military meals, bottled water, infant and toddler kits and generators. Estes Express partnered with FEMA, supplying the semi-trucks needed to serve the 3.5 million people that Kloth and his group helped. 

“It was quite a mission,” he said. 

On Sept. 11 he flew into Fayetteville, N.C. – with all the tornadoes in Irma’s aftermath, the safest nearby spot to land – before driving 11 hours to the disaster relief site outside Orlando. In 12-hour shifts the group worked with 10 FEMA relief workers, who were stationed in a large RV, to load 600 trailers of supplies that would be dispersed from Tampa all the way south to the Florida Keys. Each of the 600 trailers contained 44,000 pounds worth of supplies.

Kloth had just a three-day notice from Estes. An email went out to employees nationwide calling for volunteers. He immediately asked his wife, Janna, and she was in agreement: Go for it.

“It was well worth it,” he said. “It was such a great experience to help others out.” 

Kloth noted that the Orlando area hadn’t been damaged, yet fuel and water were scarce. Some parts of Florida wouldn’t have ice for the entire month of September. 

“The nearest Walmart didn’t have ice, and the bread aisle was bare,” Kloth said. 

Hurricane Irma hit Florida, Cuba and Caicos Islands Sept. 8-10. The Category 5 hurricane – reportedly the strongest to hit the U.S. since 2005’s Hurricane Wilma – was downgraded to a tropical storm on Sept. 11. According to weather.com, this season was the first since 2005 in which four hurricanes hit the U.S.