Rather than conduct a poll on your favorite comfort food, the Young Lawyers Section wanted to express its thanks to the men and women in Clay, Duval, St. Johns and surrounding counties for the extraordinary work they did to protect our communities and assist in cleaning up and rebuilding following Hurricane Matthew.
Many times, members of the community fail to appreciate the extent of work that our law enforcement and first responders are charged with.
For example, I am sure many of you at the Beaches crossed the bridges after they were reopened and upon entering the areas thought, “Wow, this is not that bad.”
What you may not have known is the Beaches in many places were entirely inaccessible.
Law enforcement and first responders worked tirelessly day and night to clean up the area as best they could in order to secure it for re-entry.
In many instances, these men and women risk their lives, work through exhaustion and dehydration and put the public first in order to serve the community.
While most of us evacuated and got an extra two days off work, these men and women went into the storm and worked through it, while their families went to safe ground.
Can you imagine being in a vehicle while the hurricane is coming through? Or being called out to rescue someone in 80-mph winds with flooding after they had been told to evacuate?
What about having to make the call about whether to send someone to help a person who was in a mandatory evacuation zone, thereby putting that first responder’s life in danger?
These men and women were not in safe hotels or homes of friends or loved ones.
If there was ever a time to thank and appreciate our local law enforcement and first responders for what they do, the time is now.
I encourage each and every member to think of ways we can all show our appreciation to these brave (and sometimes unacknowledged) men and women.
Not everyone chooses to dedicate their lives to serving the community as they have and on behalf of the YLS, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.