Joining a large contingent of frontline workers and emergency response crews in assisting the cleanup effort from Hurricane Sally, a number of local law enforcement officers and utilities workers are making their way to Alabama’s Gulf coast, where the storm’s damage is catastrophic.

Six local police officers from Cullman and Hanceville, along with many more linemen from both the Cullman Electric Cooperative and the Cullman Power Board, will spend at least a week — and perhaps longer — in Baldwin County and surrounding areas devastated by heavy flooding and sustained high winds from the slow-moving hurricane, which belted some areas of the coast with more than 30’’ of rain.

Hanceville mayor Kenneth Nail and public works superintendent Rusty Fields headed to South Alabama Thursday to help set up a massive base camp that will serve as a temporary home for utilities workers converging in the zone of destruction. Carrying a trailer that can accommodate several people as a mobile housing unit and command post, the two were followed on Friday by six police officers — two from Hanceville, and four from Cullman — who will help provide security at the camp. Set up at the parking lot of The Park at OWA, an amusement park near Foley, the camp is expected to house more than 1,500 utilities workers tasked with restoring service to the region.

“I’ve worked pretty much all the major disasters over the past 30 years in some form or another, and this was the biggest base camp I’ve ever seen,” said Nail after visiting the area on Thursday. “Just in the time I was there, I saw probably between 300 and 400 power trucks, along with 20 or 30 18-wheelers that’ll be used as sleeping quarters.”

Cullman Police chief Kenny Culpepper said the local group of officers will initially team with six deputies from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office to provide security, as well as offering support as a reserve mobile force if the need arises. “From what I’ve been told, it’s a huge staging area,” he said Friday. “There’s a tremendous amount of equipment and facilities being moved there to help restore power. Right now, our planning calls for our people to stay for seven days, but depending on the situation there, they may stay longer.”

Cullman Emergency Management Agency director Phyllis Little said Friday that a second local group of reserve deputies and officers already has signed on to relieve the current group, should assistance be needed in the regions for a longer period of time. With more than 160,000 power customers without service in Mobile and Baldwin counties as of late Friday, that’s not a far-fetched scenario.

“The damage in Baldwin County is catastrophic,” said Little. “Even though the hurricane was classified lower as a Category 2, the sustained winds lasted longer, and the rain lasted longer, than Hurricane Ivan, which hit as a [Category] 3 in the same area in 2004. Sally was only moving at speeds between 1 and 3 miles per hour when it made landfall, and it dumped inches and inches and inches of rain. The storm surge at Ft. Morgan, Gulf Shores, and Orange Beach was horrendous, and there was significant flooding further inland.

“Most of the guys from the Co-op who are responding to Sally had already been in Louisiana, working to restore power after Hurricane Laura,” she added. “Some of them had just gotten back home to Cullman, right before this one hit.”

In addition to the nine Co-op workers helping restore power to Baldwin County, Hanceville police officers Brannon Hammock and Josh Howell, along with Cullman Police officers Tyler Jackson, Jake Lambert, Jeff Mize, and Lt. Scott Sanford, will be providing security and support at the base camp through the coming week.