Adrienne Gang Reflects on Hurricane Damage – Tough to See Complaints About ‘Insignificant Things’ on ‘Below Deck’
Former Below Deck chief stew Adrienne Gang, who spent days working at the World Central Kitchen after Hurricane Ian leveled several towns in Florida said what she witnessed left her a changed person.
Gang, who is now a chef, tirelessly contributed toward thousands of meals for the community completely devastated in the storm’s wake. She recently reflected on her experience, sharing that she was proud of the work she and other chefs did, especially during those initial days after the storm left so many people without power, water, and even homes.
But, as someone who hosts a Below Deck podcast, she couldn’t help but compare the devastation she witnessed to some of the complaints and issues that are seen on Below Deck.
Adrienne Gang from ‘Below Deck’ became emotional thinking of the toll taken on people in the hurricane’s path
She became emotional discussing her experience. “I’m going to get choked up. I’ve never met a group of people that worked so hard just to be able to help other people,” she said on her Gang Plank Report podcast about the people who she worked with from World Central Kitchen.
“I mean, we were getting up at 4:00 in the morning every day and pushed out thousands of meals that were going all over, seven different counties to feed people that needed it. And nobody complained,” she added.”By the end of our working shift, which was about 12 hours long, everybody was exhausted. Everything I hurt. My feet hurt. It was hot because we were working outside with no air conditioning and barely any ventilation. But no one was there to complain about it.”
“So when I see Below Deck, and I see these guys complaining about these little insignificant things, it makes me just want to slap them,” Gang said. “Because there’s so much good that can be done. And even though we’re working in these really adverse conditions, people are just still passionately excited to be there. And I’ve never witnessed anything like that before and I can’t wait for the next time.”
She saw houses with roofs blown off, no power, and trees down
Gang immediately volunteered to help when the hurricane struck. “So I initially volunteered with World Central Kitchen for a couple of days after the hurricane here in Tampa,” she recalled. “Because they had set up a facility here and a friend of mine connected me to them. So I went in as a chef to help them. They asked me to stay on for a couple more days, which I willingly did because everybody that I met there was amazing.”
“Then they shifted the kitchen down to the Minnesota Twins facility, their spring training facility that is down in Fort Myers. And there’s accommodation there,” she added.
“I went out to distribution a couple of times. So I was actually meeting the people that were affected by the hurricane,” she said. “I wasn’t just in the kitchen the entire time. It was driving through Fort Myers to get to the place, I was actually up in Port Charlotte, which was a little bit north, and they got whacked by the hurricane as well. And the trees down and the power lines and the houses with roofs blown off. It was crazy. I was so busy that I didn’t have a lot of time to take a lot of photos. But I’m sure by now people have seen a lot of the news coverage and the still shots and the videos of the bridge.”
Adrienne has nothing but amazing things to say about World Central Kitchen
Gang said the photos and videos of the devastation don’t do it justice. “We were seeing things all the time,” she said. “It’s hard to explain unless you’re there or unless you’ve experienced something like that, what it is. But I need to tell you, there were people that were coming up because we were serving some of our food out of a food truck on location.”
“The people that were coming up and the gratitude that they had for being able to have a hot meal after not eating. Or hot food for days or showering or anything. They were just grateful that people cared enough to be there to feed them,” she said becoming emotional.
“And I have nothing but amazing things to say about World Central Kitchen,” Gang said. “The people that I met through this organization, everybody’s there because they want to help because they genuinely care about other people. And most of them are people they’ve never met before or have any connection to, but they understand inherently the value of what they’re doing.”
World Central Kitchen locations continue to open as more residents need meal assistance.
