A free barbecue was held at Pocahontas County High School Sunday to thank volunteers who helped out when the June 29 derecho storm whipped through the county. Door prizes, cake and pork barbecue were all a part of the day's festivities.

Sheriff David Jonese said he wanted to acknowledge the volunteers' hard work.

“It was a thank you for the civilian volunteers that came out to work during the storm,” said Jonese. “I was thinking it'd be a real nice thing to be able to say 'you sit down and relax and we'll talk and laugh about some of what happened, and you sit and eat and not have to work.' It wasn't for the fire department, it wasn't for the sheriff's department, it was for the volunteers that came out on their own.”

Jonese said volunteers working in the kitchens at the Senior Center in Green Bank and The Pretty Penny in Hillsboro were working under brutal conditions.

“They had no power, they're running off a generator, cooking on gas stoves — it was 107 degrees in the kitchen and they were cooking for hours and hours,” he said.

Jonese said volunteers prepared around 3,000 meals a day for about 10 days, and they were lucky to have food to distribute.

“Some of the food we had was donated by Foodland, Henry's, and the schools, because it was going to spoil. So we were fortunate to even get food to take to these places and pass out,” said Jonese.

Jonese thanked Morgan McComb for preparing the pork barbecue, and thanked everyone at the high school for providing the cafeteria for the event, but he also wanted to thank the volunteers.

“People going out and delivering food and checking door-to-door — that's asking a lot from people, but it also tells you a lot about a person. They did this day after day, and they had the same problems everyone else did.”