Anderson County officials, businesses, residents work to aid storm victims
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Volunteers from the Clinton Baptist Association unload supplies to be delivered to storm victims in a storage warehouse.
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Employees of SL Tennessee in Clinton collected dona- tions for victims of Hurricane Helene. They donated and loaded 17 pallets containing 150 cases of water, 20 cases of Gatorade, and a pallet of pet food, which were shipped to a donation warehouse by R&T Transportation. Roane State’s Clinton campus assisted in collecting water do- nations. The donations also included $4,000 in cash from employee contributions and a company match, along with handwritten notes of encouragement from SL Tennes- see employees. Pictured above (not in order) are: Steven Brooks, Sharita Riggins, Jonathan Dye, Steve Edwards, Kandace Beal, Ricky McPherson, Ben Fredericks, Nathan Burrow, Amber Brewster, Amy Robbins and Bill Smithhart.
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The city of Oak Ridge’s police and fire departments collected a trailer full of bottled water to help commu- nities affected by Hurricane Helene last week. Oak Ridge Fire Chief Travis Solomon said he was in contact with state and local emergency management agen- cies to “deliver trailers of donations where the highest needs are.”
With the devastating floods in the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina mountains from Hurricane Helene capturing everyone’s attention over the past week and a half, people throughout Anderson County have been mobilizing big time to do whatever they can to help, County Mayor Terry Frank said Monday.
“Anderson County has really stepped forward in so many heartwarming ways to volunteer and donate to the victims of the hurricane,” Frank told The Courier News.
“From first-responder agencies to churches to businesses — small and large — to individual citizens, the people of Anderson County have been extremely generous,” she said. “It is truly inspiring.
“I know there are so many amazing efforts from various places — from churches to the Anderson County [Farmers] Co-Op, and I can’t really speak to all of them,” Frank said.
“I know that the officials in the impacted counties, as well as the victims, have so many needs, and the citizens of Anderson County have been amazing at answering the calls for help,” she added.
Local social media sites have been full of requests for aid, including donations of water and other necessities, and first responders – such as the Anderson County Rescue Squad, Rocky Top Fire Department and many others – have even traveled to the affected areas to help in search and rescue operations.
The devastation and loss of life are truly heartbreaking, but here in Anderson County, people are thankful that this area was spared the brunt of the storm as it passed through the mountain region.
Locally, churches, civic clubs, businesses, government agencies and countless individuals have answered the call for donations and deliveries of supplies and other aid to the affected areas – many of which are still dealing with power and communications outages along with limited access because of washed-out roads and bridges.
“I was on a call with Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis and an entire delegation of East Tennessee mayors,” Frank said. “On that call, Mayor Mathis noted how so many agencies were working in their fields of service to help Cocke County and other counties.
“He mentioned that highway officials are helping the highway officials in the impacted counties, and that sheriffs were helping sheriffs and law enforcement in the impacted counties —and on down the line to EMA and EMS agencies,” she said.
“On our mayor’s call, Mayor Mathis noted some of the needs he had, and one of them was a need for multiple tractor-trailer loads of bottled water.
“The first trailer is fully loaded, and Anderson County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Brian Galloway has officially connected with Cocke County per their coordinator, and the truck will soon head to Bristol Motor Speedway” with donated water supplies, Frank said Monday.
“Cocke County’s point of contact on the water contribution, Casey Kelley, has indicated Cocke County is going to take all tractor- trailer loads to be stored inside there (the speedway), and will be distributed from there,” she said.
She added: “Elected officials, some local businesses, and many kind-hearted citizens really stepped forward to meet the challenge and brought a steady stream of cases of water until it was filled up.
“The second trailer will stay on site at the Detention Facility at 308 Public Safety Lane in Clinton for the remainder of the week for anyone wanting to fill up the second truck. The needs are still there,” Frank said.
“Working with the Sheriff’s Association, Sheriff Barker is also collecting some identified needs for dog food and sleeping bags,” she noted.
“Working through the Sheriff’s Association on requests, the Sheriff’s Department already helped facilitate a delivery of batteries and garbage bags to the impacted counties,” Frank said.
Help is coming from so many places locally that it’s hard to list them all. New efforts are announced frequently.
For instance, on Monday morning, Norris First Baptist Church and the Norris Fire Department said on local Facebook community pages that they would be “taking donations for the next two weeks for our neighbors in the East TN area.
“Canned food, water, cleaning supplies, batteries, flashlights, personal hygiene products, pet food … They are in desperate need of baby formula, bottles, diapers wipes and blankets. If these things are donated to a church they cannot be confiscated,” the post read.
“They will be taken to a local church and distributed locally,” it said. “Asheville and surrounding areas are receiving a lot of attention, but the smaller, more-rural areas aren’t. All donations will go to the areas in East TN that have been affected.
“You can drop donations off at the Norris Fire Department any time of the day. Anything given will be appreciated.”
On Saturday, the Anderson County Farmers Co-Op posted on its Facebook page that it had collected donations of seven pallets of animal feed, fencing, water, food and more that were being taken to Erwin, which was one of the areas hit hard by the storm.
Locally, the after-effects of the storm prevented Ingles supermarket in South Clinton from taking debit or credit cards for payment, as the company is headquartered in Asheville, and card processing through the company’s main computer system was interrupted.
During the outage, the store was only able to take cash.
At about 2 p.m. Friday, however, cashier Anita Osland said the store had begun accepting debit cards again, and by Saturday morning, debit and credit cards were being processed normally.