Russellville Rural Fire Chief recalls mission to help those impacted by Hurricane Katrina

LOGAN COUNTY, Ky. – For Cheryl Allen, being a first responder runs in the blood. As the chief of the Russellville Rural Fire Department. Service to the community has been a top priority of hers for many years. But when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, she felt another calling. After returning home from a trip to New Orleans, she immediately knew that she needed to go back.

“As I was coming back home and going through the door, looked at my husband and I said, you know, I am going back. And he says, are you crazy? He said, have you seen? And I said, yes, I’ve seen. And I said, that’s what I do. I said, that’s what we train for, that’s our goal is to help other people” Chief Allen said.

The journey south was an eerie one as the closer they got to the coast, the worse the destruction became. In some places, it resembled what she described as looking like the end of the world.

“I guess for me, the visual, visual that I carry with me is just first seeing the widespread devastation, seeing boats that were 20 miles from water, inland and just seeing cars in the, in the road in the median just had been flooded out. And you wondered, where did those people go? Where are they? Did they survive? ”

Soon they arrived in Lumberton, Mississippi, where they parked in front of a church. A member of that church then approached them, and when Alan said that they were here with supplies. The church member welcomed them into their church. And it was here that Alan knew that she was in the right place.

“it was just so weird because we walked into the church, and I’ll never forget this. We walked in and on the whiteboard it said, Welcome Kentucky. And I was like, this is where we’re supposed to be. This is it.”

From there, with the help of local guides, they were able to reach some of the most devastated areas in the state, handing out water, baby supplies, clothes, food, and many other important items. But it was one woman’s interaction with Allen that drove home just how destructive the storm was to the population that lived there.

“We pull up in, an isolated area. I said, honey, I said, what can we get for you? And she looked at me and she said, do you have a hairbrush? And I said, yes, we do. I said, because we had toiletries. We had hairbrushes, combs, toothpaste, all that kind of stuff. And I went and got her a hairbrush and she cried. It broke my heart.”

Allen says that her faith in God played a huge role for her trip to those affected areas, and that providing the help that these people desperately needed was a feeling that she will never forget.

“I will concur with John that it was probably. The most rewarding. And the most blessed you could ever be. Being able to go help.” Allen said