Tax-free donations can be made via Trucks with Room to Spare and CN Supply's websites

A nonprofit trucking group is partnering with a volunteer-run disaster-relief organization to collect and eventually deliver critical supplies as Hurricane Ian intensified into a Category 4 system and is expected to pound Florida's southwest coast late Wednesday morning.

Shelli Conaway-Waugh, of Lexington, Kentucky, a 30-year trucking veteran, runs a nonprofit group called Trucks with Room to Spare. She works with several relief organizations, including CN Supply, along with her network of truckers and donors, to pick up crucial disaster-relief supplies, which her group will deliver to the hardest hit areas of Florida once Ian has passed.

"As soon as the hurricane hits and the initial search and rescue is over, we'll start carrying supplies in," Conaway-Waugh told FreightWaves.

Her group coordinates with drivers who want to volunteer and have space in their trailers to haul a few pallets of supplies if they are headed to the area and asks trucking companies if they could donate a driver and their equipment to pick up and deliver supplies.