Navarre community united in relief efforts
The couple of days before the hurricane gas lines were long and stations in Navarre were running out. The shelves at local grocery stores were empty. Hurricane shutters were going up on windows and people were buying cases of water when they found them. Propane was next on the list along with batteries and flashlights. School was canceled until after the storm, Hurlburt Field evacuated aircraft and no one was holding out hope that the storm would turn.
But it did. Navarre barely got a scrape from one of the strongest hurricanes to hit the panhandle of Florida – ever. Because at the last possible minute, it turned to the east. Our fortune was Panama City and the surrounding area’s disaster. The video and photos coming out of there are indescribably tragic. Houses are no longer there. They are flattened. You look at things like that and you wonder, where did it all go? No furniture, no nothing and it is just rubble. Trees are down and if they are still standing they are entangled with other trees. It looks like an intricately spun web of wood. Metal towers are bent and twisted, and swaths of land have been washed away and there is now water where there didn’t use to be. Videos are surfacing of neighborhoods that are just being reached where the children haven’t eaten in days. They lived through the nightmare of the hurricane, but will they survive the aftermath? What about the ones that haven’t yet been reached?
One thing is for sure – this blessed community of Navarre, whose memories of Hurricane Ivan are fresher now than ever, has rallied together like the Calvary and reached out in unprecedented ways. And perhaps we have social media to thank for that. Just regular everyday people are loading pickup trucks with chain saws, tools and supplies and traveling through horrible debris to get to people who need help. They are cutting and clearing as they go to deliver peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to the little ones who are hungry. They are delivering diapers, formula, cribs and toys. They are taking dog and cat food, litter, leashes and pet supplies. No one is left out. And the community of Navarre is making a difference.
Every single restaurant in Navarre is leaving competition behind and pulling together to take enough donations to pack a 32-foot semi-truck full of supplies, food and water to deliver to the victims of Hurricane Michael. It won’t be the only one they fill because Navarre has a heart that doesn’t stop giving.
Food trucks are heading over to the area to cook free meals. Social media featured a video of a convoy of Publix trucks headed to their stores in that area. Gulf Power and crews from around the country, totaling upward of 6,000 workers, are working 24 hours per day, seven days a week to restore power.
Our sheriff, Bob Johnson and a team he assembled left for Washington County as soon as it was safe to go. They had to cut their way in to get there. And they are providing invaluable resources to the Washington County Sheriff’s office. We also had a team from Santa Rosa County deploy – even a team from Public Works. Our county is making a big difference.
Navarre knows this will be a long-term recovery. We know from experience. We remember the devastation that Ivan left behind. We remember tarps on roofs, a seemingly endless amount of tree and lawn debris, our neighbors who lost homes and businesses and being hot, hungry, thirsty, dirty and mentally exhausted. No time to adjust to a new reality – you just had to get to work on salvaging what could be saved and put one foot in front of the other. Eventually people rebuilt and lives returned to a new normal. But the process was long. We know it will be a long process for Panama City as well.
In this issue, we feature several ways you can help. Panama City will need us to help them for a long time. We cannot forget that a week from now, they will still need help. A month from now they will still need help. This is who Navarre really is – we are proud to be part of this community.