La. group offers aid to PC

Images of destroyed homes and flooded properties are still heavy on the minds of a group of good Samaritans from St. Bernard Parrish in Louisiana who made it through Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.

These people know exactly what it feels like to lose their home, all their earthly possessions and people they love. They know what it’s like to try to pick up the pieces and start over from scratch. They know what devastation is, so when they heard about the devastation wrought by the April 27 tornadoes, they knew what they had to do.

Kim Crane heard about the storms and all the damage on the news and immediately wanted to find a way to help those in need. Like most people today, Crane knew the best way to contact many people in a short amount of time was to get on a social networking site, so she formed a group on Facebook with the purpose of gathering supplies and volunteers to help with the tornado relief.

Pretty soon, Crane and several people she knew were organizing drop off locations and letting people know exactly what supplies the storm victims needed. After piles and piles of supplies had been collected, they then focused on where to take them.

“We were originally planning to take the supplies to Tuscaloosa, but they were overrun with volunteers and supplies,” Crane said. “We found out about Phil Campbell and decided this was the perfect place because this town is like what we grew up in.”

The group made their first trip to Phil Campbell on May 20-22 with 10 volunteers and trailers and trucks full of supplies. After returning home and gathering even more supplies, Crane, Kelly Presley, Brandon Bordelon and Shelia Mize returned this past weekend and brought even more supplies that would be helpful at this stage in the recovery process.

“We’ve kept in touch with Beth [Rhea] and she’s let us know what kinds of things to bring,” Crane said. “But we’ve also been through it and know what people really need and what they don’t need, too.”

On this trip the group brought many household items like bed sheets, pots and pans, cleaning supplies, toiletries, baby items and furniture. Rhea, who helps run the supply center in Phil Campbell along with her husband Barry, said the support from this particular group has been great.

“They knew what we needed and all the stuff they’ve brought has been clean and sorted,” Rhea said. “They’ve really helped us out a lot.”

Mize said they are glad to help in any way they can because they know from experience that even the smallest gesture can mean so much.

“Almost six years later, people are still in our area helping with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina,” Mize said. “We knew if we could help out here then we should help out here.”

“We’ve really taken this city to heart,” Presley said. “All anyone ever heard about on the news during Katrina was how bad it was in New Orleans. Places like St. Bernard Parrish never got mentioned, so we were glad to help a smaller area like Phil Campbell that people might not know as much about.”

Bordelon said the group would head back to Louisiana on Sunday and begin gathering supplies again.

“This area is going to need help for awhile and I actually look forward to coming here,” he said. “I was more excited about coming up here than I was about my fishing rodeo last weekend. I’m just glad we can do anything to help.”