LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Four Lexington firefighters deployed with Ohio Task Force 1 to assist with hurricane recovery efforts are back home.
In total the team traveled more than 4,000 miles in the 21 days they were deployed.
They were in Orlando, FL first to stage for Hurricane Helene, then were sent to Asheville, NC for the catastrophic flooding, then were deployed back to Orlando for Hurricane Milton.
"It is devastating," said Capt. Nick Bodkin. "It is hard to put into words walking down the street and there should be houses but there aren't anymore, or you walk up to where there should be a bridge and it's gone."
Nick Bodkin, Kelley Harris and Jordan Brown were part of the search and rescue team. Bodkin has deployed with Ohio Task Force 1 several times.
"It's not something you do once and say I'm done with this, once you do it you're like I want to keep doing this. I want to keep helping people, I want to keep expanding my skill set," said Bodkin.
District Chief Chris Warren also deployed for 13 days to the Asheville area.
"Our role is to basically manage the chaos," said Warren.
His job was to manage search and rescue teams and donation sites and supplies, alongside FEMA and the National Guard.
"We were able to get a lot accomplished really fast, when all of us are working towards that same goal together," said Warren.
As a veteran of the department the chief told LEX 18 seen many natural disasters. He said it was much worse than the flooding Eastern Kentucky saw in 2022.
"It's almost incomprehensible, you can't even believe that a creek the size of this road was 40 or 50 feet deep, and now all the water is gone," said Warren.
The four firefighters shared the same sentiment.
"Even though it was a bad situation for a lot of the people there, I'm just glad I was in the position to go help," said Firefighter Kelley Harris.
The deployment was originally slated for 14 days but was extended due to the back-to-back hurricanes.
