Sonoma County Red Cross official, volunteers heading to storm-ravaged Florida Keys

Jeff Baumgartner, a Santa Rosa resident who heads the American Red Cross California Northwest Chapter, will reach the storm-ravaged Florida Keys today uncertain of what he will find in the aftermath of Hurricane Irma.

“We’re still trying to sort out the situation down there,” Baumgartner said in a telephone call Monday afternoon from Orlando in central Florida. “It sounds like there is significant damage in some places.”

What’s known is that 5,000 to 10,000 people - in a population of 80,000 residents - stayed behind in the Keys, a 120-mile chain of islands extending from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula that were raked by Irma’s devastating wind and seawater surge.

They have no water or electricity, limited cellphone service and no way out on the lone road, Highway 1, stretching from Key West to Key Largo near the mainland, Baumgartner said.

“They are out there with what they had before” the hurricane struck Sunday, he said.

Officials need to check the condition of the highway and the Keys’ 44 bridges before the public will be allowed in or out, he said.

Baumgartner worked for the Red Cross on emergency management in the Florida Keys in 2014 before coming to Sonoma County.

Officials in Monroe County, where the Keys are located, warned Monday of a potential “humanitarian crisis” there, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott said it could be weeks or months before some areas are habitable again.

Baumgartner joined a contingent of 16 Red Cross volunteers from the North Bay who have deployed to Florida, Texas and other locations in the aftermath of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, as the latter moved into Georgia Monday as a tropical storm.

The Red Cross volunteers - 14 from Sonoma County and one each from Lake and Humboldt counties - will provide medical and mental health care, plus shelter, feeding and logistics, said Cynthia Shaw, spokeswoman for the Red Cross. Baumgartner works as an elected official liaison, helping the Red Cross communicate with local leaders.

The volunteers will serve for at least 14 days, some for longer, and the Red Cross is appealing for new volunteers.

There were an estimated 210,000 people at 680 evacuation centers Sunday night in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, she said.

In Houston and other parts of Texas, 7,500 people were staying at 32 shelters.

“Volunteers are the heartbeat of this organization,” Baumgartner said of the Red Cross.

Volunteers must be at least 18 and pass a background check.

For out-of-state deployment they must commit to 14 days of work, possibly including 12-hour day or night shifts.

You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 707-521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @guykovner.