Ohio Task Force One takes relief efforts to Panama City Beach
As Florida panhandle digs out, team focuses on one of hardest hit cities.
Ohioans are continuing relief work in Florida today after high winds and surging waters from Hurricane Michael left the panhandle devastated earlier this week.
Michael is the third most powerful hurricane on record to hit the continental U.S., reaching a Category 4 hurricane as it approached the Florida panhandle Wednesday. At least two people have died because of the storm and search teams are looking for trapped people among the rubble of houses that once stood along the coast.
Ohio Task Force One, which is headquartered in Dayton, is among the groups that traveled to Florida to help with relief work. The team was headed to Panama City Beach, one of the most devastated areas on Thursday afternoon, said the team’s leader Doug Cope.
At the time, he said he didn’t know what to expect aside from what he’d seen in pictures and through the media.
Tate Hagan, a University of Dayton student from Tallahassee, Florida, also said he doesn’t know what to expect when he returns home. His father, step mother and brother stayed in Tallahassee, about 93 miles east of Panama City Beach.
“My dad has said when I come home, it’s going to look like a different scenery,” Hagan said.
While there wasn’t a lot of flooding in Tallahassee, Hagan said his parents have told him the wind caused major damage, and roads are closed because of all the downed trees.
“They knew it was probably going to be OK to stay, but they’re out of power, so they had to go get a lot of food and a lot of water to last for about four or five days without power.”
He’s experienced three our four hurricanes in his life, but none were like this, Hagan said, adding that he wanted to be home to make sure his family would be OK and to see first-hand the destruction to his old stomping grounds.
“I grew up going to those beaches, so it’s kind of hitting home seeing pictures and stuff of all the destruction that’s going on there,” Hagan said.
Generally he said it would take an hour to an hour and a half to get from his home to the beach, but Google Maps shows that it would now require driving north through Georgia and take more than three and a half hours due to closed roads.
The storm has since downgraded to a tropical storm, making its way with heavy rains over Georgia and South Carolina on Thursday.
Bobby Johnson, a 71-yearold American Red Cross volunteer in the Dayton area, recently returned to the Miami Valley after two weeks in North Carolina.
“I really makes me feel sad for the people down there because I know what they went through. I was down there and now its hit again,” Johnson said. “The American people right now just can’t get a break from the weather.”