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Indianapolis-area man returns to Panhandle to feed hurricane survivors

CALLAWAY, Fla. (WMBB) — When an Indianapolis restaurant owner heard that Hurricane Michael was taking aim at the Florida Panhandle, he started getting ready to help.

Rob Ecker, who owns the Rusted Silo in Lizton, was born and raised in Callaway, Florida. 

“My family’s here, everybody’s here for me, except for my wife and daughter,” Ecker said Sunday. “I knew the hurricane was coming, and I just had a feeling it was going to be a bad one.”

Before the storm made landfall Wednesday, Ecker reached out to his suppliers and vendors to gather donations. He packed a trailer full of about 200 cases of water, as well as food and other supplies, and headed south.

“Personal items, diapers, formula — just stuff everybody needs all the time — and we loaded it up. Couple thousand hot dogs, about a thousand hamburgers and buns, you name it. We started cooking this morning at Northstar Church, and we figured we were going to be done about 1:30 and people just kept showing up with more food for us.”

He said he’ll keep at it as long as he has food to serve.

“A guy just brought us an entire cooler of grouper and snapper fillets. He didn’t want to throw it away and so he said, ‘Cook it and feed people,’” Ecker said.

He said he didn’t yet have enough food to cook Monday, but that he would if he got more donations.

“I told my wife and daughter that I’d be back to Indiana when I wasn’t needed anymore,” he said.

Northstar Church is on South Tyndall Parkway between Wewa Highway and Cherry Street in Callaway.

“The whole area here, it’s a tremendous amount of damage. I grew up here, I’ve never seen this much damage,” Ecker said. “It’s devastating. I mean, it breaks your heart. The entire landscape is changed. I drove to my best friend’s house yesterday and I drove right past it because I didn’t even recognize the neighborhood. I’ve been there hundreds of times and I couldn’t even recognize it. So that’s how everything has changed and it’s just sad to see it.”

He said his family members in the area are safe after the storm.

“Home damage is there, but everybody’ll rebuild and recover and do good,” he said.

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