Local companies join in Hurricane Katrina relief effort
ALLEGHENY POWER TO HELP RESTORE ELECTRICITY As the nation begins to respond to the devastation that remains of the gulf coast in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, one local company is also helping with relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina smacked the tri-state region.
Allegheny Power, which supplies electricity to most of southwestern Pennsylvania, has deployed a unit of 44 workers to help restore power to the ravaged area, in addition to 90 workers that will also join the effort, after completing work in Florida.
The team of 90 people had been restoring power to Florida residents who suffered a glancing blow from Katrina as the massive system chugged toward New Orleans last week.
“We have had 90 employees in southern Florida since last week and now that they have completed their work, they are being redeployed to Mississippi,” company spokeswoman Janice Lantz said Wednesday. “And we now have 44 employees in route to Tennessee where they will be staging for relief efforts.”
Lantz said Allegheny has a long history of pitching in nationally when disaster strikes, be it an ice storm or a tornado.
“The utility companies provide mutual assistance to one another in extreme outage situations,” Lantz said. “Allegheny really likes to help other utilities out when we can spare the personnel. Once we saw that the storm would have a minimal effect here, we knew we could send more people.”
Lantz said she is updated daily in a utility service conference call to track situations like Hurricane Katrina.
“After you see the devastation, its pretty substantial,” Lantz said. “It is the right thing for our company to do, to help.”
WAL-MART, WVU JOIN RELIEF EFFORT
At the Uniontown Wal-Mart, new store Manager Karen Kallam, said the company has already donated $1 million to the American Red Cross and an additional $1 million to the Salvation Army to help aide the victims of Katrina.
Wal-Mart made the donations for the effort, despite losing many of the destruction of many of their retail stores due to Katrina, and 80 stores closed because of damage and flooding in the Gulf region.
And the massive retail chain is providing opportunities for their customers to donate to the relief efforts in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.
“Each store is taking monetary donations,” Kallam said. We have our bucket set right at the front door.”
Kallam said the Uniontown store began collecting funds Tuesday and will continue for two weeks. She said additional donations may be taken if necessary.
Wal-Mart operates 3,800 stores nationally.
Anyone wishing to donate to help with the Katrina relief effort can find additional information at walmart.com, samsclub.com, walmartfacts.com or walmartfoundation.org.
In West Virginia, everyone from the local fire departments to West Virginia University are joining to help with relief efforts for the Gulf region.
WVU’s Student Health Advisory Board is preparing to begin a campuswide relief effort similar to last January’s “Dollars for Disaster” campaign that raised $10,000 for tsunami relief. School officials said about 185 students hail from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, the areas hit hardest by the hurricane.
Additionally, the Student Government Association is working in conjunction with the athletics department to coordinate other fundraising efforts for the crisis.
In the meantime, campus officials are encouraging area residents to make financial contributions to the relief effort.
Donations can be sent to the Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013 – or locally, American Red Cross, 1299 Pineview Drive, Suite 3, Morgantown, WV 26505.
Also, the university announced that the Bruceton Mills Fire Hall in Preston County will host a blood drive today from 2-7 p.m., and the Morgantown Blood Center will hold a drive Friday from 11:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., on Pineview Drive.
WVU will also host a blood drive Wednesday, Sept. 7, from 1-7 p.m. at Arnold Hall on the Downtown Campus.
AREA BUSINESS IMPACTED BY STORM
As many major companies across the nation prepare to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina, 84 Lumber Co. is no different, as company officials work to assess the damage to the region and specifically to four lumber stores hit by the massive storm.
“We had four that were really impacted,” 84 Lumber spokesman Jeff Nobers said Wednesday. “Right now we are focused on assessing where the stores stand and how our associates faired. We had a great many people that lived in that area and we haven’t gotten a hold of everyone yet. All we know right now is that all four stores still stand with varying levels of damage.”
Nobers said assessment teams are in route to the region to review the damage, particularly at two stores in the Gulfport and Waveland areas.
“Right now we want to get generators down there and fuel and start getting things cleaned up,” Nobers said.
“We have a history of doing things in situations like these,” Nobers said. “And our president has made it clear that we want to talk to all of our associates, some of whom lost homes, and we will help them first before we begin assessing what role we can play overall.”
Nobers said the devastation in the region is so widespread that it will take time to comprehend the magnitude of the storm and find a starting point to begin contributing to relief efforts.
“We are going to help our workers and our families get the stores up and running to meet coming demands and then assess the overall damage.”
The lumber chain store operates 525 stores nationwide and is set to open an additional 20 in the next 60 days.
RED CROSS SENDS RELIEF
Tammy Aubele, communications coordinator for the local chapter of the American Red Cross, said charity officials have contacted volunteers throughout the week, working to get a list of those able to be deployed to the Gulf Coast.
“After we knew the storm wouldn’t really affect this area, we are preparing who can go for a three-week stint,” Aubele said. “We hope to have a group leaving on Friday.
Aubele said more than 50 chapters of the Red Cross have already responded to the devastated region and are now housing more than 70,000 refugees from the storm.
Aubele also noted that the Red Cross has partnered with the Southern Baptist Association to provide food for victims, with the capability of preparing 350,000 meals daily.
And she said this storm is one charity workers and organizers will never forget and added that the work is just beginning.
“This is the largest mobilization of resources for us, ever,” Aubele said. “This will exceed the relief efforts for all four hurricanes last year, combined.”
Nationally, the Red Cross has reported more than $21 million in donations have poured in for the relief effort already, with more than $15 million from private donations.
The Red Cross has also stationed 72 mobile feeding units in the region along with two 54-foot mobile feeding kitchens.
LOCAL KATRINA TIES UPDATE
After worrying for days if his elderly aunt, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease was still alive, the Rev. William Lechnar, a Uniontown native, got some good news out of the remains of Louisiana.
Lechnar, who had been waiting for information about his aunt, who was inside an assisted-living facility in Belle Chasse, La., when Hurricane Katrina came ashore early Monday, said his cousin was able to make telephone contact with the 88-year-old woman early Wednesday, confirming that she had at least “survived the storm.”
“We kind of had some good news today that we were able to get a hold of my aunt through my cousin,” Lechnar said, “She got her although at the assisted-living facility, the phone lines were out. It was nothing short of a miracle.”
But the family’s happiness at contacting their loved one was short lived, after another call to the care home later in the day revealed that the patients were being moved to Houston via bus.
Lechnar said that while he understands the necessity of getting everyone out of the region and noted that the heat in the facility had to be sweltering, with temperatures outside around 100 degrees and with no electricity, he is concerned now about where his aunt might end up and how the family will find her.
“The phone lines are down everywhere and calls are so unreliable.” Lechnar said. “All we know is that she is on a transport to Houston. That’s it.”
The priest in the Diocese of Greensburg said he tried calling everyone from the mayor’s office to the Louisiana state police without much luck with lines busy or not there at all.
“They tell you that you can call these numbers, but everyone in the country is trying to call them,” Lechnar said. ‘We are just one family facing this type of thing.”
Lechnar, who has many relatives and friends in the region that was hammered by the flood waters, said some friends and loved ones have yet to be contacted, others have called and checked in from places as far as Texas – the first place they could find a room to stay – and still others have called and simply cried to the longtime priest.
“My mom’s best friend, we don’t know where she is. We have friends who live one block from the lake. We haven’t made contact. It is a lot of emotional trauma. A 55-year-old school principal I am friends with broke down and was crying because he doesn’t know where his mother is,” Lechnar said.
His cousin, a teacher in the Jefferson Parish school system, who had said schools would be closed for at least two months yesterday, has now updated that estimate to four or five months as officials uncover more and more damage from the deluged region.
His cousin said she didn’t really know what to do, and Lechnar said many are struggling to comprehend the magnitude of the loss.
“They can’t get to their houses. She is a teacher. I mean, does she even get a paycheck?” Lechnar said. “They don’t know what to do. The death and destruction is worsening by the hour. In the city it is just unbelievable.”