CANTON – Tim Reichel’s good deed plunged him into volunteerism for the American Red Cross – then ultimately into a career.
It all started with Hurricane Katrina. It was late on a Sunday night, Aug. 28, 2005. Probably into the wee hours of Monday morning. Inside his North Canton home, then-48-year-old Reichel couldn’t take his eyes off of a Fox News TV broadcaster, reporting from New Orleans.
“It was Shepard Smith,” Reichel recalled. “He’s in the French Quarter and the sky is pitch black.”
Tim Reichel of North Canton discusses being compelled to volunteer for the American Red Cross in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. It led to his journey to full-time disaster service work for the Heartland, Stark and Muskingum Lakes chapter in Canton.
Reichel had watched and read about natural disasters before. But this hurricane; that city; the people there all spoke to his soul. Maybe because he’d pleasure-visited the Big Easy before. Or perhaps it was the fact he considers it the most unique city in the country.
“I was just enthralled,” he said.
He had to do something.
So, Reichel grabbed his landline phone and dialed what was then known as the Stark County Red Cross chapter. He knew the office was closed at that hour. He simply wanted to leave a voice message. I’m ready to volunteer for Katrina, he told them.
They called him back later Monday and accepted his offer.
Following an interview, then training classes, Reichel finally was ready. He flew to New Orleans, via Atlanta, on Nov. 18. He was supposed to help with shelter during his two-week stint.
Some souvenirs Tim Reichel kept and scrapbooked from his first Red Cross volunteer deployment to New Orleans.
Reichel volunteered at the Red Cross for 10 more years. Then, he landed a full-time job there. To this day, he remains community disaster program manager for the Heartland, Stark and Muskingum Lakes chapter.
Since Katrina, he’s been sent to nearly three dozen flood, tornado, hurricane and other natural disaster sites in the U.S. and its territories.
“Tim is very passionate about disasters,” said American Red Cross Northern Ohio Region disaster officer Emily Probst, his current boss.
Deployment No. 1: Katrina aftermath
New Orleans was a city of nearly a half-million people before Hurricane Katrina. In the aftermath, the population sank to half that. Now, two decades later, 357,767 people live there. The population includes some who returned, as well as an influx of Latinos during the reconstruction phases.
Reichel peered through the jet window before landing.
A younger Tim Reichel was deployed to New Orleans in 2005. He was supposed to help with shelter for victims. His assignment got changed on the spot, though.
“Blue tarps as far as the eye could see,” he said.
Eighty-two days after Katrina made its first landfall, many of the buildings and houses that survived didn’t have roofs. Blue tarps became symbols of a rebuilding effort to come.
He recalled a shuttle ride to a Red Cross in-processing center. Waiting in line to be assigned to sheltering duties, Reichel struck up a conversation with Marty Moran, a Red Cross life safety and asset protection manager. Moran, a former police officer, must have been impressed.
After all, Reichel’s real job was chief bailiff in the Canton Municipal Court. He also happened to have a law degree. Reichel once was destined to follow his dad, Richard Reichel, a former Ohio House and Senate member and longtime Stark County attorney, into the legal profession.
“Marty tells the lady at the head of the line he’s keeping me,” Reichel said.
Reichel’s new assignment: safety and security.
On the ground, odors from so many neighborhoods linger to this day.
Some of the carnage and devastation Tim Reichel saw in New Orleans neighborhoods, more than two months after Hurricane Katrina landed.
“Rotten food, mold … the stench of death,” he said.
His duties included visiting shelters and kitchens to make sure they were safe for victims and volunteers.
He eyeballed layouts inside each for clear fire exits. He studied walking traffic for possible tripping hazards. He asked the managers about any problems with volunteers.
And Reichel handled everything from minor traffic accidents which involved a Red Cross volunteer, to helping send a drunken volunteer back home – the man was more interested in drinking away his credit card stipend at a bar than actually working.
Reichel missed Thanksgiving at home. But he got to sample turducken during a dinner for volunteers in Baton Rouge. A Lousiana-centric carnivore’s delight, it’s a chicken stuffed inside a duck, stuffed into a turkey.
“With corn bread in between the layers,” he said.
Pretty darn good, he recalled.
Cataloging a history of disaster response
In New Orleans, and at every out-of-town scene since, Reichel tries to buy a few hometown newspapers for souvenirs. He takes photographs. Each evening, he uses a highlighting marker to trace all the roads he traveled throughout that day on a local map.
The collection of materials from two decades of work is stored in binders and boxes, mostly in his basement.
Tim Reichel of North Canton used a highlighter to mark all the roads he traveled in New Orleans in 2005.
That deployment to NOLA, his first ever, remains Reichel’s sentimental favorite – if you can refer to any disaster response as a favorite. He’s read several nonfiction books on the hurricane, including “Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital” and “1 Dead in Attic.”
“Highly recommend,” he said.
That missed 2005 Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the first holiday Reichel spent away from home. In volunteering with the Red Cross, then as an agency employee for the past 10 years, travel is normal.
Reichel has been deployed to state after state for natural disasters. He’s served stints in California, Kentucky (three times), Florida (three times), Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and on and on. His most recent long-term assignment was for three weeks in Hawaii for the wildfires in 2023; an assignment that was nothing like a vacation.
“He’s missed Christmases … birthdays, New Years,” said his wife of 34 years, Deborah Reichel.
She understands.
They’d met while both worked in the Canton court system.
A scene from New Orlans after Hurricane Katrina. Tim Reichel tries to take photos at all his long-term deployments.
“Most of the time, he’s sleeping on cots,” his wife said. “I stay home and take care of the dogs. “He’ll send me pictures. It’s hard to really (comprehend) some of what he’s seen.”
Although Red Cross volunteering eventually became a career, it wasn’t the first time Reichel tried to help others. Growing up, he was a Boy Scout. He said his parents raised him to be civic-minded, to give back to the community and to always be respectful of others.
“I’m proud of him and he may not say it, but he’s proud of what he does and he should be,” Deborah Reichel said.
Welcome aboard the Red Cross team
In March 2015, the local Red Cross didn’t have to look far to fill its newly opened community disaster program manager post.
“I said, ‘I thought you’d never ask,'” Reichel recalled.
Tim Reichel of North Canton has a law degree. He used to work as chief bailiff in the Canton Municipal Court system. But volunteering with the American Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina, led him to a full-time career at the Red Cross.
Aside from extended deployments, Reichel’s work is focused in the Heartland, Stark and Muskingum Lakes chapter service area of Stark, Wayne, Ashland, Carroll, Holmes, Harrison, and Tuscarawas counties.
That means that on as little as a moment’s notice, he’s on his way to a scene to help people who’ve lost their home or belongings to a fire, flood or other disaster.
Reichel is part of a team that gives these victims security – a place to live, food, clothes. Even a blanket can mean a lot to someone who’s lost everything.
Red Cross staff and volunteers can be a comforting friend to people living through one of the worst days of their lives.
“He’s basically on call 24/7,” his wife said.
Sometimes, Reichel responds himself.
Other times, he organizes and coordinates response.
As a chapter community disaster program manager, Tim Reichel responds to natural disasters in many northern Ohio communities.
“Tim is definitely able to connect with people,” said Probst, his supervisor in Cleveland.
When he’s not deployed to a disaster, he and others try to prevent them. They hand out fire and smoke alarms. They teach others, such as schoolchildren, techniques and tips which could help them survive a house fire.
“This,” Reichel’s wife said, “is what he was meant to be doing.”
Reach Tim at 330-580-8333 or tim.botos@cantonrep.com.On X: @tbotosREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: North Canton Volunteer for Hurricane Katrina now works for Red Cross.