SAN DIEGO (KGTV)-- Twelve members of San Diego's California Conservation Corps returned home today, after a one-month deployment. On October 10th, 2018, Category 4 Hurricane Michael approached the Florida Panhandle. 155 mile-per-hour winds wiped out Mexico Beach City, Florida. For the last month, Corps members were assisting residents recover from the disaster.
"We did a lot of damage assessment analysis, temporary roofing, we did debris removal, tree removal," Corpsman Antonio Sanchez said.
The CCC is a state agency that offers young adults environment-related jobs. Most of the work is in California, but they can be deployed elsewhere. This was crew leader Rebecca Voorhees' first time out of state.
"It was very eye-opening because we've seen fires. But not things like this," Voorhees said. "It makes you a little more humble because it's not just you here we're helping. We can help all over the world."
But their hearts are always at home, especially on Thanksgiving.
"I'm really glad to be home. 30 days is a really long time away from family, and so I'm going to go home and spend some time with them," Sanchez said.
Their Thanksgiving vacation lasts only a few days. When they go back into the office on Monday, they will be put back on the "available for deployment" list. Their next stop could be to Northern California's fire-affected areas, where they go back to doing what they do best.
"We help people," Voorhees said. "To go out there and give everybody our all, to at least give them some sort of feeling that there are people out there are watching them and that care about them."
San Diego County's branch of the California Conservation Corps is located in National City. For more information, click HERE.
