When Hurricane Michael ripped through the Florida Panhandle nearly a year ago, it splintered homes and displaced families. As the state braces for Hurricane Dorian, one of Michael's casualties is still struggling to get back on its feet after the destruction from that 2018 weather event.
The Mossy Pond Volunteer Fire Department's fire station, which was built more than 30 years ago, was destroyed when Michael hit in October, according to NBC News. Since then, the all-volunteer department's eight members have been maintaining normal operations, responding to emergencies for the more than 14,000 residents in this rural Calhoun County community outside Panama City. To do that, some firefighters have been keeping the department's apparatus and other vehicles sitting in their front yards in lieu of a firehouse bay.
“Almost everyone on the department is still trying to recover personally, but there’s not time,” Mossy Pond Firefighter Alicia Rhodes told NBC. “We spend a lot of our time answering calls and trying to raise funds for the department.”
Raising extra money is crucial if members want to restore the department to full strength. The storm damage to the station made it a complete loss, and Calhoun County's insurance company paid just more than $100,000 for it. But that doesn't begin to pay for a new station, which will cost about $42,000 for blueprints and could run between $250,000 and $400,000 overall, according to NBC.
That also doesn't factor in the costs of replacing expensive gear, which was either damaged or stolen in the hurricane. For instance, halogen lights the department uses to illuminate crash scenes were recently looted and will cost more than $1,500 to replace.
"It's just adding insult to injury," Chief Tony Mazzarese told NBC, adding that one firefighter wrote, "Dear Thief, stealing from us could cost you your life!” on a station door after a post-storm theft was discovered.
Those expenses have put a strain on the department's already threadbare budget. Annually, the department runs on about $10,000, with fundraisers adding a couple extra thousand dollars.
"We have to cut costs everywhere to try and make it work. We do fundraisers whenever we can,” Mazzarese told NBC. “Being very careful, I’ve been able to operate the department on $12,000 a year, which is insane to think about.”
One way the department is looking for relief is through a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant. If approved, that money would pay for rebuilding a station.
The status of the department's application is a mystery, however. After at first being unable to find the Mossy Pond's grant request, FEMA said the application was missing key documents from Calhoun County, according to NBC. But county officials claim they haven't received heard from FEMA about the department's grant application, nor have they received a request for more documentation.
"It’s very frustrating, and the rules seem to keep changing,” Calhoun County Commissioner Gene Bailey told NBC. “They’re supposed to be simplified, and they’re not what they used to be, but they aren’t easy for us. We are very appreciative of anything we get.”
In the meantime, Mossy Pond's volunteers continue doing their duties as best they can. Since the beginning of the year, crews have responded to nearly 130 calls, the majority of them medical emergencies, which isn't unusual given the service area's high elderly population.
Although the firefighters have adapted and adjusted to their harsh reality, the pressure and hardship of how they must operate now has proven to be too much for some members, leading to six volunteers leaving the department.
While unfortunate, those losses aren't the source of the greatest dread for Mossy Pond firefighters like Mazzarese and Rhodes.
“We’re getting better at this, but our fear is that it’s going to cause someone to die,” she told NBC. “That’s our number one concern is that we’re not going to get there in time.”
