Since Hurricane Michael ravaged the Florida panhandle, residents of the state and surrounding areas have wasted no time stepping up to help. Among the good Samaritans in the relief effort is Plant City’s own Charger Wrestling Club.
“It’s really hard to plan for a natural disaster. You’ve just got to kind of go with the flow,” Terry said. “I’ve spent a lot of time up there in Mexico Beach and things of that nature when I was in the military. To see that place, how bad it was, it hit home.”
On Oct. 10, coach Will Terry and the club hatched a plan to help people in and around Bay County. The club put out the call to Plant Citians and, by late afternoon Oct. 12, the group had filled a U-Haul trailer full of clean clothes, non-perishable food, bug spray, diapers, oil, gas and more. People from all over Plant City visited the club’s Oak Avenue location to donate supplies or money which was used to buy supplies at Walmart.
“There was probably enough stuff in there to clothe five, six families and probably enough food to stock 10 pantries,” Terry said. “We didn’t make a huge dent, but anything’s better than nothing.”
Not everything went according to plan, however. Bay County law enforcement had been extremely selective about who could enter the county after the storm passed and anyone who wasn’t a resident or first responder would be turned away. That meant the entire group of CWC wrestlers would have been turned away despite their intentions to go help people. But Terry, coach Blake Olson and club dad Rick De Pianta, who is a police officer, were allowed in.
The group left Plant City at 5 a.m. Oct. 13 and made it to the destination, First United Methodist Church of Marianna, recommended to them by a wrestling contact of Terry’s from the area who could only get the cell phone service to call the group by going to Alabama. They unloaded the U-Haul and got everything ready for distribution, then traveled around the area to see what kind of damage had been done. Terry called the sights of downed trees, demolished brick buildings and downed power lines scattered all over roads a “humbling” experience for the three men.
“It was total destruction,” Terry said. “Huge, three-story brick buildings crumbled. This was 30 minutes north of where Mexico Beach and Panama City are. The pastor of the church was talking to us and said they were told it wasn’t just transformers and poles down — it wiped out the entire electrical grid in Pensacola. At minimum, six weeks before they have power.”
Though not just anyone can enter all of the affected areas at this time, there are ways to help from inside Plant City. The Goodwill store on James L. Redman Parkway is a designated donation center for hurricane victims and anyone wishing to donate money can do so on the Red Cross’s website, redcross.org.