BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) — The Bay County Sheriff’s Office is sending a team down to South Florida to help with recovery efforts.
A team of nearly twenty Bay County sheriff’s deputies packed up their gear to join Bay County Sheriff Tommy Ford in Charlotte County.
“One thing Sheriff Ford was determined to do after Hurricane Michael was to create a relief team because he foresaw and felt the need to pay them back for that had done for us,” BCSO Public Information Officer Ruth Corley said.
They began the twelve-hour drive on Thursday night, taking trailers full of resources, their shower facilities, a mobile kitchen, and ATVs for search and rescue.
The self-sustaining team can survive on their own for several weeks, without draining the host county’s resources.
“When you go into a devastated area or a natural disaster you need to be self-sustaining. There may not be stores to go shopping, there may not be running water, and there may not be electricity,” Corley said. “So what do we do? We come with generators, we come with food, we come with water, we come with tents.”
They are also taking a mobile command post with them to Englewood.
“It’s very important for us to pay back what was done for us after Hurricane Michael,” Corley said. “The debt of gratitude that we feel to all of the agencies that came so generously and sent so many people and enabled our guys and ladies in green to be able to go home and take care of their families and try to put their lives back together.”
The relief team plans to be in South Florida for a couple of weeks.