Relief workers poured into hurricane-stricken areas of the Gulf Coast as Katrina's refugees poured out, and Hawai'i residents were among both groups.

"It's our anniversary," said Faith Tomoyasu said as she dropped her husband, paramedic Jason Tomoyasu, at the Honolulu airport last night. "But it's OK. I've seen all those poor people on television."

Jason Tomoyasu is on a nine-member medical strike team, consisting of six Hawai'i nurses, two paramedics and an emergency room doctor, that was scheduled to leave Hawai'i for Houston last night. The group, part of the Hawai'i Disaster Medical Assistance Team, sponsored by the Healthcare Association of Hawai'i and the state Department of Health, will be deployed as needed from Texas.

In addition to helping others, the group will collect valuable information that will help medical authorities prepare for disasters in Hawai'i, said Toby Clairmont, team leader and a nurse with Healthcare Association of Hawai'i.

With barely 24 hours of preparation, he said, his fellow team members dropped jobs at Maui Memorial, Queen's, Straub, Kaiser and Honolulu Emergency Medical Services and were flying out to assist the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The medical volunteers are among a growing group of Hawai'i residents moving into the Gulf region to help. They'll be joining Red Cross workers who began deploying as Katrina struck, an eight-member team of Honolulu-based Corps of Engineer members who left for the Mississippi Valley on Saturday, and state epidemiologist Paul Effler, who was on a military convoy last night, en route to conduct epidemoliogical testing in Biloxi.

Some Hawai'i Air National Guard members with special training in communications have been advised they could be called to service in the gulf, said Maj. Chuck Anthony, spokesman for the Guard.

Meanwhile, four of Tomoyasu's co-workers at the City and County's Emergency Medical Services, in New Orleans for a conference, were stranded by the hurricane at a downtown hotel near Bourbon Street.

EMS Chief Patricia Dukes said paramedics Melinda Shiraki, Jill Takayama and Doreen Kitagawa and technician Rochel Ortiz were unable to get a flight out of the city as the hurricane bore down.

The group is camped out in a 12th-story hotel room, rationing wet-bar peanuts, paying black market prices for water and trying to stay clear of looters until they find transportation out. A bus they had arranged to ride into Texas never showed up, Dukes said.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.