Twenty-two Hawai'i Red Cross volunteers have been working along the Gulf Coast assisting the American Red Cross in response to hurricanes Gustav and Hanna. And likely they will be assisting in recovery efforts because of Hurricane Ike.

The more than 11,375 volunteers the Red Cross mobilized are positioned along and near the Gulf Coast, in South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas.

Hawai'i's 22 volunteers have been managing shelters for evacuees and returning residents in Louisiana.

They also have been serving as Red Cross liaisons at Louisiana government emergency operations centers, providing crisis counseling to evacuees, conducting health assessments of shelters in Louisiana, providing disaster assessment of residences affected by Hanna, helping manage shelters for Red Cross volunteers from other states and providing communications for shelters, community service and headquarters operations.

Eleven of the Hawai'i volunteers are from Hawai'i County, Red Cross officials said.

As Hurricane Gustav neared its landfall earlier this month, the Red Cross housed 58,000 people in 574 shelters in 12 states (more than on the second night after Katrina hit).

Michele Liberty, a Disaster Action Team volunteer from Keauhou, has been working and staying in the Louisiana shelters. She was there when busloads of evacuees came from New Orleans and the surrounding wards.

Andy Levin, a volunteer from Hilo who works for Mayor Harry Kim, is serving as a Red Cross government liaison at the Emergency Operations Center in Louisiana, coordinating with 54 mayors and police chiefs on closing shelters and getting evacuees on buses back to their home towns.

Esther Lau, a Honolulu nurse, assessed Red Cross health services in Texas shelters which were housing Louisiana evacuees and helped coordinate the transfer of bedridden people from a shelter back to their homes.

To make donations, go to www.redcross.org or call 800-REDCROSS.