Mission 850: Homegrown relief network aids Bay, Calhoun, Liberty Hurricane Michael victims
Southwest Florida journalists document Hurricane Michael as part of roof from hotel blows off on Oct. 10, 2018.
ANDREW WEST, NEWS-PRESS
The Monday after Hurricane Michael's deadly landfall, Dot Wagner had dinner in a Tallahassee pizza shop with her husband and two of their kids. Wagner looked around her. Her city mostly had regained power, and normalcy was in reach.
She began to cry.
Mission 850 volunteers prepare a tarp for a roof-less home in Marianna following Hurricane Michael.
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The Tallahassee couple had spent that whole day in ravaged Panama City, helping a family whose home was severely damaged — one side completely gone. Shops were closed, electricity would be out for weeks. Their friends were eating granola bars for dinner.
The two realities were jarring.
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Hurricane Michael: Aerial photos of Panama City, Mexico Beach damage
It was then Wagner and her husband decided to start Mission 850. The couple heard about people in need from their friends in Panama City, and knew pastors in impacted areas like Mexico Beach.
Through Mission 850, about 50 groups — some families and their neighbors, others church groups and classes — have signed up to volunteer their hands and resources. Through it, Wagner's created a database of helpers and residents in need and connects them with each other.
Dot and Nick Wagner.
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So far, the homegrown relief network of volunteers have touched about 60 families across Bay, Calhoun and Liberties counties, Wagner said.
Anita Sessions in Callaway, a suburb of Panama City, had been sleeping on a pallet for six weeks because her mattress was soaked from rain after a tree breached her bedroom ceiling, Wagner said.
Sessions, an elderly woman, had been trying to dry her mold-smelling mattress with a small table fan.
Rodney Braden and Ken Creel volunteer to remove a fallen tree after Hurricane Michael in Altha.
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The same Altha home, pictured above, fixed after Mission 850 volunteers helped remove the that fell on the roof.
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