Flagler County aids in Hurricane Idalia disaster recovery

Hurricane Idalia had barely left Florida before Flagler County sent out emergency response teams to help in the relief effort.

Flagler County Emergency Management Director Jonathan Lord and Emergency Management Planner Nealon Joseph left for Madison County at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 30 in the Emergency Operations Center’s field trailer. The duo were set to return to Flagler County on Tuesday, Sept. 5.

Lord said over text message that he and Joseph were working positions similar to their jobs at home. 

Lord helped the Madison County emergency management director manage the response — identifying unmet needs, organizing priorities and liaising with other agencies — while Joseph helped set up distribution points for fuel and other resources.

Nonprofits and state, local and federal agencies were working together to provide services, Lord wrote.

“It is common in Florida for county emergency management to support each other in this way, as there are so few emergency management staff in each county,” Lord wrote.

Meanwhile, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office’s 10-member Emergency Response Team left before dawn on Aug. 31, setting up command in the back parking lot of Suwannee High School in Live Oak, Suwannee County. 

Cmdr. Jon Dopp said the FCSO team was originally only sent out for a week, but the stay has been extended to 10 days. Most of the team is working 16- to 18-hour days, he said, but all of the team members are happy to be of help.

“They wanted to be here for the full 10 days and get the job done,” Dopp said. “So they’re tired, they’re working hard, but they want to be here.”

The team left Flagler County with the FCSO's Mobile Command Center, a bunk-house trailer, a kitchen trailer, patrol cars, an airboat and a high-water rescue vehicle. The team brought its own food and tools to be self-sufficient, Dopp said — the team only needed showers and laundry services, which Suwannee County was able to provide after a day.

“One of the worst things you can do when an area has been impacted like this is show up and become an additional burden on them,” he said.

Around 90% of Live Oak had power restored, Dopp said in a phone interview on Sept. 5, but the rural parts of the county — around 15,000-16,000 people — are still without power.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office announced in a press release on Sept. 4 that 96% of all accounts that lost power following Hurricane Idalia had been restored.

First responders and county officials were not the only ones who went out to help. The Bunnell congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent around 30 volunteers to Jasper, Florida over the weekend.

Don Gooden, the congregation’s Elder Quorum president, similar to an assistant pastor, said the church regularly organizes volunteer efforts after disasters. 

The church's groups split into three teams of around 10 people, received work orders in Lake City and then headed to Jasper. From there, Gooden said, his team managed to go to eight different properties, cleaning up debris and cutting up and removing fallen trees.

Downed trees caused a lot of the damage, Gooden said. Lord and Dopp said much of their disaster relief focused on clearing the roadways to get resources to residents.

Christina Brouse, a volunteer with the Latter-Day Saints team, said she, her husband and her kids have been volunteering for hurricane cleanups since they moved to Florida in 2009. She and her husband took turns over the weekend taking their four older daughters to Jasper, while the other parent watched their youngest at home.

On Sept. 3, Brouse said, her group — including Gooden and her daughters — cleared four properties of fallen trees and debris. At one of the homes, she said, a tree knocked out the back portion of the home and destroyed the above-ground pool in the backyard.

“There was just water everywhere, and it was muddy; it was smelly,” she said. “The skid steer going in and out just made it muddier.”

Her kids love helping out with cleanup, she said, and it teaches them to be sensitive to the challenges other people may be facing.

“I think that service is a Christ-like attribute. The Savior constantly was serving other people,” Brouse said. “This is a small way that we can share and show our love to others.”

Gooden said part of what the team members do while volunteering is spiritually minister to the people they are helping.

“One of our main points that we like to do is sit down and kind of talk with them,” he said, “Let them know that somebody cares about them and that they can get through it.”

One of the people helped was an older woman in a mobile home who had health problems, he said. She told him that she wouldn’t have been able to take care of the work on her own.

“She was just so very grateful that we were there,” Gooden said, choking back tears. “And it really touched me that we can do that for someone and uplift them. … It changed her entire outlook of the situation she was in.”