By sea and by air, aid from South Florida begins arriving in the storm-ravaged Bahamas.

By air and by sea, emergency aid donated, collected and delivered by South Floridians began flowing into the hurricane-ravaged northwest Bahamas on Thursday, the start of what’s expected to be one of the largest locally organized relief campaigns ever.

The first large relief shipment arrived on Grand Bahama Island on a Royal Caribbean cruise vessel, with tugboats ferrying pallets of water bottles, boxes of cereal and 10,000 hot and cold meals to shore in battered Freeport.

Not long after, Rob Ceravolo, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot who founded Tropic Ocean Airways in Fort Lauderdale, deployed eight amphibious Cessna Commander planes to the islands. They were loaded with food, water, medicine, tarps, ropes, generators and other supplies.

The planes, in a joint operation with contractor Blue Tide Marine, also carried inflatable boats, overland vehicles and former Navy SEALs who will begin to install a Wi-Fi network to facilitate official communications in and out of the islands.

The seaplanes, which have floaters equipped with wheels and have been used in aid and rescue missions after Hurricanes Matthew and Joaquin, touched down in scattered sites in the islands, including Treasure Cay on Great Abaco.

“The minute we saw this hurricane coming, we put our plan into place,” Ceravolo said. “Our company is 30 to 40 percent ex-military personnel, so we can create a risk assessment, put controls into place along with the government and communicate directly with FEMA.”

A day earlier, Tropic had sent two airplanes over the Bahamas to scout for potential landing areas. The airline will continue accepting donations of supplies from the public and has a list of specific items that are needed on its website, along with drop-off information.

Thursday also saw the departure to the Bahamas of the first of what should be several large shipments from cargo companies on the Miami River. A container ship from the Betty K Agencies, the largest shipper operating between Miami and the Bahamas, left the river at midafternoon.

It was loaded with 600 tons of aid, including large portable generators and food that doesn’t require cooking stacked in pallets, said Horacio Stuart Aguirre, chairman of the Miami River Commission, a quasi-governmental agency that is helping coordinate the relief operation with the Miami River Marine Group, a commercial association.

The supplies represent the efforts of dozens of volunteers, charities and government and religious organizations, including Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami, that began collecting and packing donations on Monday.

“Miami really rallies to a humanitarian cause, and we have longtime historical and economic ties to the Bahamas,” Aguirre said.

The Betty K IV is expected to arrive Friday in Nassau’s port. In coordination with the Bahamas’ emergency management agency, its cargo will be unloaded and transferred to helicopters that will fly supplies to the worst-hit islands, Aguirre said.

Betty K Agencies has committed to sending two more shipments at its own expense, he said. Another large Miami River shipper, Antillean, has also offered to send a ship.

The shallow-draft Betty K ships can draw up to the shoreline and dock in shallow water. The Betty K IV is equipped with its own cranes, forklifts and cargo elevators, Aguirre noted, so it can operate even in damaged ports.

“It is uniquely suited to get close even to a wharf that has a lot of debris,” Aguirre said.

The river stakeholders began planning the relief operation before Miami was out from under the threat of Hurricane Dorian, which struck the Bahamas as a monstrous Cat 5 storm and stalled over its northwestern islands for more than two days.

“Miamians were still under the threat, so we weren’t quite really officially out of the woods when we were planning this,” Aguirre said. “But we had to move very quickly, because if we didn’t, it would be another five days before we could get this out. We worked literally around the clock.”

Numerous other business and volunteer groups also worked feverishly Thursday to gather and ready donations and aid for delivery to the Bahamas. From the Boys & Girls clubs to United Way organizations, local charities were asking their networks of donors and volunteers to pitch in with cash and supplies.

Rotary International District 6990, the umbrella for Rotarians in South Florida and Grand Bahama, was loading four cargo containers in a Fort Lauderdale warehouse and putting them on a 181-foot ship bound for the islands on Friday. The group also has a fund, the Robbins Fund, for disaster relief, and is soliciting donations through PayPal.

Another newly formed marine industry group, the Abaco Relief Alliance, launched a Facebook page and began organizing a fundraising drive and soliciting donations to ship via commercial freighter to the islands.

“We are simply well-intentioned people who are doing our part to try and bring a little help and relief to the people of the Abacos,” Alliance co-founder Bruce Marx wrote on the Facebook page.

The Miami Marlins, meanwhile, said they will turn their ballpark into a donation site during the team’s upcoming homestand, starting Friday through Sept. 12. The team’s charitable foundation will match donations from fans that they can make at concession stands by giving $1 or rounding up purchases.

Cruise lines operating out of South Florida have pledged millions in aid to the Bahamas, in addition to making their ships available to transport supplies and provide other assistance.

On Thursday morning, crew members on board Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Empress of the Seas ship worked overnight to pack 10,000 meal boxes to deliver to Freeport.

The Miami-based cruise company is in contact with the Bahamas government and plans to set up a relief operation at the Grand Bahama shipyard. For the next week, Royal Caribbean plans to augment its itineraries so that one of its ships arrives in Freeport each day with relief food.

“It’s a huge production given the amount of time,“ said Melroy Antao, head of food and beverage on the Empress of the Seas. “This is a mammoth job to undertake.”

Sixty restaurant crew members, 40 bar crew members and 40 cooks darted around the ship’s main ballroom packing meal boxes with chips, granola, apples and cutlery starting at 8:30 p.m. as the ship left PortMiami.

“I need chips! Chips!” one yelled as his supply ran low. Others cheered.

Hot food preparation of rice, chicken and turkey began at 3:30 a.m.

The Empress ship was originally scheduled for a seven-day cruise beginning last Sunday, but the company changed its schedule due to Hurricane Dorian.

The company now plans to take 500 evacuees from Freeport to Nassau on Thursday evening. A separate barge with donated generators, water and food was scheduled to arrive in Freeport on Thursday as well.

This story was originally published September 5, 2019 at 7:56 PM.