When Pierce Burton heard the news about the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, he saw an opportunity to use his skills in disaster relief to help those affected by the war.

“I went over there, and I was primarily going to provide medical supplies,” Burton told WSB’s Jonathan O’Brien. “Then it just kind of transitioned into here’s my background, and here’s what I can do.”

From there, he assisted in rehabbing some temporary housing for Ukrainian refugees who had relocated to Poland. Burton, who has spent the past decade helping with disaster recovery, helped improve the construction project timeline.

“They were looking at the end of summer, and they started housing people in those properties at the end of April,” he explained.

Thursday marks the start of his third trip to the war-torn country. He will spend four weeks there assessing the damage with a handful of other people. With the winter coming, he said there is no time to waste.

“You’ve got people that can’t leave the country, can’t find a place to stay, and so then they’re going to be resorting to living in bombed-out buildings, so I’m trying to alleviate that through temporary shelters and repairs,” Burton explained.

Until this point, his experience has been primarily focused on hurricane and wildfire recovery, but he treats both the same way.

“You don’t know exactly what you’re driving into or flying into, but you know what you’re doing,” he said.

He expects to spend a lot of time over the next several years helping in the recovery and rebuilding efforts.

“If we don’t rebuild it then we are just dooming these people to another generation of being invaded again,” Burton said.

©2022 Cox Media Group