When North Carolina declared a mandatory evacuation before Hurricane Florence made landfall Thursday, Sept. 13, Jennifer Witkowski didn’t know where she would go. In addition to finding somewhere safe for herself, Witkowski had to find a place to take her two horses, Rough C’s Ahead and Renegade.
“We were supposed to go down to South Carolina or to Florida,” says Witkowski. But after the evacuation order, she soon realized that heading south was not an option. “I just started driving north because that was the only thing I knew how to do because I wanted to get out of the way of the hurricane.”
During her travels, Witkowski received a call from a friend who said that she could stay with his parents in Great Falls. His parents, Paula and Clyde Smith, then recommended Witkowski take her horses to Frying Pan Farm Park, named a designated equine evacuation site by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.
Witkowski arrived with Rough C’s and Renegade on Friday afternoon, where they joined other displaced horses from southern Virginia. A total of nine horses spent time at Frying Pan Farm Park that weekend.
Frying Pan Farm Park volunteered itself as an evacuation site in response to Hurricane Irma in 2017. In addition to being a refuge, Frying Pan is also waiving its typical stabling fees for displaced horses and their owners. “The folks can be here indefinitely until they find a more suitable situation, and we are allowing them to exercise their horses on-site for free,” says Meghan Look, the equestrian and maintenance manager at the park. “I am a horse rider myself, and so I know how tough it can be to find a suitable place to have your horse, especially in an emergency situation.”
For anyone from an evacuation state who has horses and has lost their permanent stabling, Look says that they are still open and are offering their services at no financial cost.
Witkowski and her two horses are currently the only residents at Frying Pan; the others were cleared to return home. Witkowski isn’t so lucky. From Pender County, North Carolina, she says there is water up to the streets’ stop signs surrounding her home, and while no one can enter her house yet, “there’s a good chance that I’ve lost everything.” Even her job is up in the air—she is a licensed mental health counselor who was slated to start at a new mental health practice—as she says a tree went through the office’s roof. All of this makes her extremely grateful for the availability of places like Frying Pan.
“I wouldn’t have left without my horses, so to know that there are places that will take my horses was the biggest act of kindness that I could ever ask for,” she says. “I don’t even know when I can go home. They’re looking for another possibly two to three weeks of flooding, so I don’t know how I will make ends meet; to know that they are safe and taken care of and I don’t have to pay for that additional expense is invaluable.”
In the meantime, Rough C’s Ahead and Renegade are adjusting well to their new surroundings, says Witkowski, who visits them twice a day, every day. She praises the Frying Pan staff for not only how they have treated her horses, but the care they have shown her as well.
For those interested, Frying Pan Farm Park recommends going to United States Equestrian Federation Relief Fund to find out how they can support horses and their owners displaced by Hurricane Florence.
