- October 16, 2024
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The weekend following Hurricane Milton’s assault on Florida saw many Floridians without power. In Flagler and Volusia Counties, though not as hard-hit as the state’s west coast, some areas were inundated with flood waters or were without power for several days.
Grace Community Food Pantry was one such casualty. Their storage facility was out of power from overnight Oct. 9 to mid-morning Friday, Oct. 11.
“The hurricane came, and then I sent some guys out there, and there was no power,” said Dottie Colletta, Grace Community Food Pantry coordinator.
The pantry’s main storage facility at 245 Education Way was without power until the morning of Friday, Oct. 11 — not long enough for the facility’s freezers to thaw out, but long enough that the pantry’s team had to throw out produce that had gone bad.
Thankfully, Colletta said, their stores had mostly been emptied the weekend ahead of Milton, so only the produce that had been delivered the Monday ahead of the hurricane had to be thrown out. But they did have to turn away a meat delivery from Second Harvest Food Bank.
“It would spoil. We couldn’t keep it anywhere,” she said. “We were running back and forth, different people checking [the power], and then we had it. But by then we couldn't get anything. There wasn't anything left to get from Second Harvest.”
At that point, she said, they made the decision to close the pantry for the Oct. 12 and 13 weekend at its Education Way and Hidden Trails Community Center distribution sites. Just at the main Education Way distribution site, the pantry regularly helps between 1,200 and 1,300 Flagler County residents each distribution weekend, she said.
Dan Samuels, the director of philanthropy with Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, said that after natural disasters, there is often a surge of families that need food and supplies for an extended period of time, as people recover from storm damage and property loss.
Second Harvest covers seven counties in Florida, including the southern part of Flagler County and all of Volusia County. The food bank supports eight local pantries in Flagler County and eight in Ormond Beach.
While it’s too soon to really feel the full impacts of Hurricane Milton, Samuels said, the food bank expects to see more need in the coming weeks as people get power back and storm waters reach their highest peaks.
“Milton seems to have created large pockets of need throughout our community as some areas were impacted worse than others,” Samuels said. “We are seeing some of the worst impacts in Volusia County.”
In Flagler County, as several thousand residents were out of power days after Hurricane Milton, the Flagler County Emergency Management Center organized a distribution site to help residents in need. From Oct. 11-14, the Flagler County and Flagler County Sheriff’s Office set up in the Daytona North area to hand out water, tarps and MREs to residents.
Between Oct. 11 and 13, the county handed out 4,044 cases of water, 2,619 tarp cases and 1,307 MREs, according to data from the EOC.
After a disaster, he said, the food banks works together to coordinate relief efforts to the hardest hit areas based on the type of need in that community. Areas like Tampa, directly hit by Milton with thousands still out of power, need things like MREs. In other areas, residents who lost power — like pockets of Flagler County, Ormond Beach and Volusia County — need produce and meat to replace the food that had to be thrown out.
“We're tailoring what we're distributing in each community based on the specific needs of that community,” Samuels said.
Samuels said it is likely as well that in the months that follow Hurricanes Helene and Milton, food banks and pantries could see an increase in demand because of the economic side of disasters: The storms also devastated a lot of Florida’s farming community.
“So the price of produce, we expect will go up across the board,” he said.
Colletta said since the pantry was closed for two of its normal distribution days in the Mondex, the Mondex location will be open for service on both the Oct. 19 and 26 weekends. By that point, they will have been able to restock on both produce and meat.
“The fruits and vegetables and produce and bread, that's all great, but it's the meat that sustains people,” she said.
Those who wish to donate food or funds to the Grace Community Food Pantry can do so by visiting their website at gracecommunityfoodpantry.org.
