National Nurses United

Organizing Committee. She agreed that it's the inherent value system of the nursing profession to be on the front lines of disaster response. "It's just what we nurses do," said Reding. "We have the skill set and the values and the mindset—and the RNRN vehicle—to help communities heal." Nurses were sent to different shelters and placed at mobile medi- cal units across the Asheville area where people from all walks of life were staying. There were elderly folks. There were veterans. There were young families. There were recent immigrants. All were wel- comed. All were served. From their seat at the windowed booth area, day shift nurses would start at 9 a.m. seeing residents who had been waiting in a long line before the clinic even opened, hearing their concerns and administering over-the-counter medications, like Tylenol and Day- Quil, for aches, pains, and cold and cough symptoms. They ensured people got their medications and had help managing their medicat- ions for pre-existing conditions. They assessed and cleaned wounds. They tested for Covid and flu. If further check-ups were needed, there were spaces set aside to take vital signs and more private areas set up for further examina- tions. In more serious situations, nurses would refer the resident to the emergency department or mental health providers. Basic nursing work continued into the evenings, and night shift nurses soon found that their main task was helping people sleep, according to Mary-Jane Perry, a perianesthesia care nurse from Sacramento, Calif. "Imagine the trauma of the sudden disruption to your life, as well as the anxiety about the future, after your people, your home, and your job have all been washed away," said Perry. "And then consider that you're sleeping in an auditorium with so many strangers. So during the night shifts, we handed out a lot of melatonin and a lot of Benadryl because people could not—and understandably—sleep in that envi- ronment comfortably." O C T O B E R | N O V E M B E R | D E C E M B E R 2 0 2 4 W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N A T I O N A L N U R S E 21 Wake of the Storm RNRN nurse volunteers provided all types of healing in Asheville, N.C. after Hurricane Helene. By Michelle Morris When Barbara O'Neill got the call from Registered Nurse Response Network (RNRN) to deploy to Ashe- ville, N.C. to support the Hurricane Helene recovery efforts, she was thrilled. Now an emergency department nurse at Kaiser Perma- nente's Oakland Medical Center, she had been a nurse at a New York City hospital when Hurricane Sandy hit. "Because I had lived through Hurricane Sandy … it was impor- tant to me to volunteer with RNRN. So it was an immediate yes when RNRN called to ask me if I could go to Asheville." Asheville was one of the regions most impacted by Hurricane Helene, which swept through the Gulf Coast and southeastern United States, killing more than 200 people and leaving billions of dollars in damage. For Carlton Purvis, an emergency department nurse from Mem- phis, Tenn., the call to deploy to Asheville was a personal one. He had spent many happy times in his youth there. "When I saw the pictures on the news and on social media, I knew exactly where they were taken. Those were places I had stood, and places I had spent time in." Purvis and O'Neill were among 14 nurses who were deployed with RNRN as part of a response mounted and led by International Medical Corps. What united all of the nurses—who travelled from Tennessee, Arizona, New York, California, Minnesota, and Florida— was a desire to connect and serve humanity. Venessa Soldo-Jones, an emergency department nurse from Minneapolis, Minn., served as a team lead for the first group of seven nurses that went to Asheville on Oct. 11. "I'm a retired firefighter. I'm a paramedic. I'm a nurse. That's my job and my skillset," said Soldo-Jones. "When there are survivors who need our help, I'm always honored to see the RNRN phone number show up." The second deployment, which left for Asheville on Oct. 23, was led by Sandy Reding, an operating room nurse from Bakersfield, Calif. and a president of California Nurses Association/National Nurses

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