SURFSIDE, Florida — Amanda Riggan with Hungry Heroes has spent the last several years cooking meals for first responders in the York County area.
Last week, she was asked to come to Surfside, Florida to feed crews working the overnight third shift at the side of the collapsed condo building.
“I really have no words to describe the atmosphere on scene,” Riggan said. “Because I’ve never experienced something like that.”
Riggan describes seeing around 500 first responders working each night, searching for more than 115 people still unaccounted for. Search efforts in Surfside continued on Monday after crews demolished the remaining parts of the collapsed condo tower.
“They literally were searching through rubble one five-gallon bucket at a time,” Riggan said. “There's an assembly line, and they're picking it up a bucket at a time and sending it down to go through it.”
Riggan said she worked with 20 other volunteers and organizations to set up grills by the memorial, cooking hot food for the crews on scene. The photos and posters lining the memorial are ones that will stay with her forever, she said.
“It was like a lot of posters and letters from kids," she said. "One poster actually just stopped me in my tracks. It said, ‘Thank you for looking for my grandma.’ And I just broke down.”
Riggan returned from Florida last night, saying she was told to evacuate as the state prepares for Tropical Storm Elsa. Riggan is already planning to return later this month.
“This was just surreal,” Riggan said. “Like something I’ve only seen on TV.”
Contact Indira Eskieva at ieskieva@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.