Sarasota County's first responders drop everything to serve others during Hurricane Ian

NORTH PORT, Fla. - Answering calls for help comes natural for first responders in North Port. In the face of a massive storm, they had to leave their families to help others. 

"When you sign up to be a first responder. Whether it is a police officer, EMT, paramedic or firefighter you think of the daily routine of it. The calls for service, going to traffic crashes and helping people in that way," said North Port PD Sgt. Scott Guzman. 

September 28, 2022, changed everything. 

"When you sign that dotted line you never think a catastrophic hurricane hitting your community and what the response will be like," said Sgt.Guzman. 

Stationed around the city, first responders prepared for the unknown. 

Hours of relentless wind and rain damaged North Port Fire Rescue Station 81. 

MORE: As flooding continues in North Port, Tampa sends officers, firefighters to help

"The room that we were in was our command room, that room had quite a bit of damage during the storm. When we were in the room actually started to flood and one of the walls actually gave way," said District Chief David Hawes with North Port Fire Rescue 

Once clear... "We stepped just outside this door here and this parking lot was flooded. We are talking about 10 inches of water, the gates were off the rails and we had to push them off so police cars could drive through to leave," said Sgt. Guzman. 

MORE: Waters rise from Myakka River, forcing rescues, closures in North Port

Tactical first in teams went out to survey and begin clearing roadways. 

"Every road in the city that we encountered was flooded," said Chief Hawes. 

First Rescue District Chief David Hawes was part of the team. 

"Something like we’ve never experienced. The catastrophic flooding as well as the storm damage," he said. 

Rescuing those in flooded areas became priority. Help arrived from the outside. 

"Boats from where we don’t even know came from all over just to be helpful to just get to those flooded areas it was huge to get to those areas," said Chief Hawes. 

With cell service barely working, it would take hours from Chief Hawes, Sgt.Guzman and countless others to find out how their families fared. 

"Once you had some time you were like man I hope I can get ahold of my wife, and I know everyone was feeling that same kind of yearning to get ahold of them to make sure they were okay," said Chief Hawes. 

Sgt.Guzman shared a similar feeling. 

"While I’m here being everybody else’s hero my wife is at home holding everything together," he said. 

Like so many in the city, their homes were left damaged. Some had family rescued by boat. But they are continuing on day by day. 

"The community itself came together and immediately started helping each other and started that healing process, it’s going to take a while. You will see blue roofs for a while, but as everyone continues to work together. We will heal," said Sgt.Guzman.