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Volunteers travel over 500 miles to help Marianna RV park recover from EF-2 tornado

Posted at 6:12 PM, Jan 11, 2024
and last updated 2024-01-11 18:12:53-05
  • Volunteers are donating time and food to people impacted by an EF-2 tornado that hit Marianna Tuesday.
  • The Florida Caverns RV park saw much of the devastation.
  • Watch the video to hear from the people who have traveled hundreds of miles to help.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Destruction is what you see walking through this RV park in Marianna. Many hands are joining together to help people rebuild.

People at the Florida Caverns RV Park and Resort are recovering from an EF2 tornado that struck Tuesday. An outpouring of support is helping get them back on their feet.

Chuck McIntosh sees this disaster as a challenge.

"Is this the biggest challenge? Absolutely," McIntosh said. "It's a lot going on all at once."

That challenge: cleaning up and rebuilding after an EF-2 tornado with 125 mile per hour winds hit the RV park he manages.

It's a tornado he experienced outside of his RV.

"We decided we were going to take shelter, we were headed up to the convenient store. Coming out of my RV and I just felt getting really light," McIntosh said. "So I grabbed hold of my truck, I fought my way over and I'm holding on to the truck.

He's been surveying damage ever since.

A job he said is the toughest he's faced but

"Not a bit easier, they've made it enormously easier," McIntosh said.

Those people: volunteers like Matt Melican.

He's with Marco Patriots, a group from Southwest Florida, more than 500 miles away.

They travel across the country to help people impacted by natural disasters.

"We like to take some simple things off of their mind," Melican said.

They are firing up the grill and cooking up some burgers.

"In a time like this, when people can come together and share a hot meal, they can share information," Melican said. "That's one of the most important parts of it."

Storm chaser Chris Hall joined them after driving through the storm.

He said they chose to come to Marianna for a specific reason.

"You come to a town like Marianna and a lot of people live out of their RVs," Hall said. "It's not a vacation home sometimes."

Something McIntosh said means the world to him and the people living at the park.

"It's volunteers who take things off your plate," McIntosh said. "It's volunteers who come in and think of thing you know of but in the moment you've forgotten about."

McIntosh tells me he hopes to have the resort up and running as soon as power and water are restored.