A group of Central New Yorkers is spending the first day of spring in Florida, not for vacation but to lend a hand to a city hit hard by a hurricane last fall.
Volunteers with Operation Northern Comfort departed Sunday for Fort Myers, which is still recuperating from from Hurricane Ian that struck in late September.
The group's CEO, Laurel Flanagan said flooding caused heavy damage that still needs repairing.
“It doesn’t really look like there’s a lot of damage until you get inside," Flanagan said. "And then you see the soft, squishy floors and the mold growing on the walls and just the complete devastation and loss of all personal items for the people that live inside.”
Flanagan said some volunteers are using personal vacation time to make the trip, while others are covering costs out of their own pockets.
"Now you have these incredible people that not only invest their time, they’ve invested their own resources to get them to where they can help,” Flanagan said.
During the summer, Operation Northern Comfort, or ONC, will shift its focus to communities in New York hit by damaging winter weather.
"We will turn our attention to the Buffalo area and the Watertown area, which experience significant damage from the winter snowstorms," Flanagan said. "Freezing pipes and burst pipes and flooding."
The trip to Fort Myers is ONC's 64th trip, and the first out-of-state project since the pandemic began three years ago.
Operation Northern Comfort is run entirely by volunteers. Their annual Crawfish Festival serves as their primary fundraiser. It'll be held Saturday, May 6 in Clinton Square from 11 to 7 pm.
