Cafe Central chef Jim Humphries washes a stockpot after serving lunch Wednesday.

MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. — When Hurricane Irma passed through the Caribbean and north into Florida, Georgia and Alabama, the storm’s impact reached far outside its destructive wake. 

As millions of Florida and coastal Georgia residents fled their homes late last week and into the weekend, hotels, gas stations, and grocery stores across the southeast were suddenly filled to the brim with evacuees seeking shelter from the storm. Although some evacuees made for the homes of friends and relatives far removed from Irma’s projected path, others simply travelled north with no clear destination in mind. When some evacuees’ flight up U.S. Highway 441 eventually brought them to Milledgeville, one of the city’s most far-reaching charities immediately sprang into action.

“Our focus Thursday, Friday and Saturday was on refugees coming from out of town,” said Jim Humphries, head chef at Milledgeville’s Cafe Central soup kitchen. “On average, we had about 40 stay here, so at three meals a day that’s probably 150 meals by the time you throw in other folks that came in. Going into Sunday evening and [Monday] morning, because we knew that’s when we were supposed to start getting the weather here, our focus then turned to getting the word out to everybody in Milledgeville, Baldwin County, and even Wilkinson County.”

From Thursday until Wednesday, Cafe Central opened its doors to both strangers displaced by the storm and local residents who were left without power when the storm passed through. In addition to housing a dozen or so evacuees from Florida and South Georgia, the Cafe prepared more than 1,000 meals for people affected by the storm. 

“Our power got cut off about lunchtime [Monday], and it hasn’t been on since,” said local resident Christine Burgamy inside the Cafe Wednesday. “Of course, everything spoils, so everything in our freezer is gone.” 

Although crews from local utilities like Georgia Power and Tri-County EMC and others that travelled in from other states have been hurriedly working to restore power to areas knocked off line by the storm, many residents, like the Burgamys, found themselves without power for multiple days. Due to the relatively sparse population of their neighborhood, which lies several miles from Milledgeville’s downtown, the Burgamys’ electric provider told them they would be among the last residents to have their electricity turned back on after the storm. Despite the uncertainty of when she might again be able to cook a meal for her family, the certified nurse’s assistant expressed gratitude for the crews working to restore power to Baldwin County.

“I’m sure they’re working as fast as they can,” she said. “I really do appreciate it, because they probably can’t even go home until they’re done. They’re probably having to stay out.”

After finally having served their last dinner of the week Wednesday night, Cafe Central’s three offerings a day over seven days represented the longest continuous streak of meals made by the charity in its history. In their efforts to provide hot meals to people affected by the storm, Cafe Central director Ann Bowen said the meals would not have been possible without an outpouring of food and necessities from the community.

“We’ve stayed open for a couple days for another storm, but we’ve never done anything like this,” Bowen said. “We ordered what we thought we needed, but other people have brought lots of food. Right before the storm got really bad and some restaurants knew they were going to be closed the next day, they brought us a lot of food so it wouldn’t go to waste. The food that we paid for, people have made donations and have absorbed that cost so we didn’t have to spend however many thousands of dollars it was.”

While Cafe Central is theoretically limited in the number of meals it can provide by the amount of food it can keep in its freezers, one resource that is apparently inexhaustible is the will of its chef. After seven days of arriving at 5:30 a.m. and going home at 9:30 p.m., Jim Humphries said he would cook every day if it meant providing meals to his neighbors in need.

“If it were up to me, and we could get the support financially, I would be willing to do this three times a day, seven days a week,” he said. “There are people that we need to reach outside of here that need meals.”