Island Heroes

Neil Rodgers and his wife Renee would not want me to call them Island Heroes or any such thing. They're just good old regular folks who help in the middle of hurricanes.

You see, when the rest of us "head for the hills" when a hurricane comes, people like Neil and Renee are there helping people, clearing trees from important evacuation routes, rescuing people stranded, and then when the storm has passed, they come out and help us mainlanders rescue and rebuild our vacation homes.

Neil is a member and past assistant chief of the Hampstead Fire Department. The volunteer fire department that is. And Renee is his right hand man...or woman I should say.

I first met Renee several years ago when she was working for Century21 Action Topsail. A storm had come through in the off season and blown a window out of one of my places. She had driven by, seen the window, called me, and then went and taped plastic over the window until it could be repaired. She helped me many more times.

Neil has a maintenance company called Hampstead Maintenance. (Call them at 910-200-1120). They do great work for me, but it is what they do beyond that that makes them my heroes. They have gone over late at night to help tenants get in when they were locked out. A few weeks ago, my regular cleaning lady had gone on vacation and had a substitute lined up. I got a call at 5pm from newly arriving tenants who said the house hadn't been cleaned. I couldn't find the substitute, so at 7 pm on a Saturday night, Renee went over and cleaned my beach house.

Another time when I was living in Surf City in the spring to get a family member some needed help, Neil and Renee called many times to see if we needed anything.

Many times, Neil has dropped what he was doing to help me or a tenant in a pinch.

Neil and Renee - and many other year round residents - would give you the shirt off your back.

These are the people - along with the others, police, firemen, cleaning ladies, utility workers, that are the heros of Topsail Island.

The picture above, of Neil and a large flounder he caught in the sound, came from his kid.

Obviously very proud of dad.

UPDATE 9/8/08 Changed chief to assistant chief in story above and removed link to child's web site. UPDATE 9/9/08 Changed Surf City Fire Dept to Hampstead Fire Dept.