By Kathy Adams
The Virginian-Pilot
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — When Brian Ledwell walked into the Ocean Park Volunteer Rescue Squad station after the nor’easter earlier this month, the damage knocked the wind out of him.
Leaves floated in puddles on the floor. Loose wires and sheets of insulation hung from the ceiling. Water-logged furniture blocked doorways. Garage doors were caved in.
“It was gut-wrenching,” said Ledwell, president of the rescue squad’s executive board. “It looked horrible.”
The three-day storm caused roughly $50,000 in damage to the building alone, he said. That’s more than the nonprofit’s annual budget of about $48,000 and doesn’t account for all the furniture and other items lost to water damage, he said.
Now the rescue squad must find the money to finance repairs and is looking to the community for help. Donations fund the rescue squad’s operations, Ledwell said.
“Our first goal is to keep the ambulances on the street,” he said. “So we don’t want to rob that money to go toward repairing everything, even though it’s needed.”
Last Saturday, nearly 50 people volunteered to clean up the station, located on Shore Drive near the Lesner Bridge. They tore wet paneling from the walls, swept up debris and hauled ruined furniture to the curb, Ledwell said. ServPro, an emergency cleanup business, lent several thousands of dollars in equipment to dry out the building.
Thanks to those efforts, Ledwell thinks the station will be habitable again by this weekend. But the squad’s volunteers won’t be able to return until new furniture is purchased or donated, he said. At a minimum, the station needs six beds for the paramedics who work overnight shifts.
Nearly 50 volunteers and three ambulances call the Ocean Park station home. They responded to almost 4,000 calls citywide last year, but their first priority is the Shore Drive and Great Neck Road corridors, Ledwell said.
No storm in recent memory, including Hurricane Isabel in 2003, caused so much damage to the station, which is more than 60 years old, he said.
“I don’t like it, but you can’t tell Mother Nature what she can do and not do,” said squad Capt. Sherry Swayze.
“We’ll just come back even stronger.”
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