Supplies from a local effort that were collected last week in Hampton, Allison and Parkersburg were delivered Saturday to the Foundation Church in Spencer, which is one location where residents in that area impacted by the flooding, can go to pick up needed supplies.
One of the church volunteers, Travis Johnson, tells Radio on the Go News what type of supplies are still needed.
“But going forward, it’s really cleanup operations. So we’re making what we call flood buckets. It’s a bucket. A lot of them have Tyvek suits, got work gloves, a couple bottles of bleach, and N95 masks. Anything you would need, heavy duty garbage bags, just a one stop. They can come up, grab a flood bucket, go to their house, and keep working. We’re also giving out ice to people to refill their coolers. We asked for flashlights and batteries, headlamps. We got a ton of those because a lot of people are working without electricity. We could use generators, I know it’s a big ask, but there’s somebody with a generator that works, drop it off. Same with dehumidifiers, two big needs. We went through sump pumps pretty fast, I think we’ve got maybe two left. But fans also, if they have pre-boxed fans, it’s just easier for us to store them. And I appreciate used fans too, but if they’re in a box, we’ve learned that makes it so much, the process goes so much smoother to have stuff boxed up.”
Johnson says volunteers are also needed to help with the clean up efforts.
“We have a lot of people that they’ve lost everything and to have to clean all that out it’s emotionally taxing. Most of them are sleeping on a cot in somebody else’s house. They’re wore out. They really need some young bodies to come in and say, hey, let us spend a couple hours cleaning your basement out. Just hauling stuff that’s ruined out to the curb and just putting it in the yard.”
Estimates show that at least 40 percent of the homes in Spencer received some level of flood damage.
