A group of Gastonia firefighters has returned home after providing assistance in communities affected by Hurricane Dorian.
Gastonia Fire Dept. Capt. Brandon Workman, engineer Lucas Rollins, and firefighters Shane Stephens and Lee Huffman departed to the eastern North Carolina coast on Sunday, Sept. 4 as part of the state hurricane response.
They provided assistance for two days at local fire departments in Carteret County; the Newport Fire Department in Newport and the Otway Volunteer Fire Department in Beaufort. Most of the firefighters at these departments were volunteers or part-time firefighters who worked full time in the bigger cities.
“A lot of those guys were paid firemen in the bigger cities and they had to go back to those big cities to man those stations,” Workman said. “So they didn’t have anybody left to really run calls, so we filled in there and handled the calls for those two different smaller departments.”