“The town is about an hour south of Newark on the coast and they were pounded pretty hard by the hurricane.” said Gary Leftwich, Southwire spokesman. “The incredible response by the people of West Georgia will go a long way to help victims there.”
Leftwich said the trucks left Carrollton Wednesday morning, bound for New Jersey, and were expected to be onsite by late Thursday afternoon.
“Our volunteers flew up today to gather and organize the goods,” he said Thursday afternoon. “They will begin handing out the supplies about 7 a.m. Friday morning.”
He said donated items included bottled water, non-perishable food items, cleaning supplies, blankets, pet food, rakes, shovels and a variety of materials to help in the cleanup.
Leftwich said after these truckloads of supplies are delivered, Project GIFT (Giving Inspiration for Tomorrow) will decide if additional collections are needed.
Additional sponsorship for the project was provided by The Times-Georgian and Gradick Communications.
“It’s amazing that people are so willing to help other people so many miles away,” he said. “It makes me proud to live here in Carrollton and West Georgia.”
Carrollton Kroger customers, joining a nationwide Kroger effort, made donations to the American Red Cross by rounding up their purchase totals to the nearest dollar. During the three-day campaign, $388 was collected at the Carrollton store, according to store spokesperson Kristen Snider.
Publix conducted a similar campaign, allowing customers to add any amount of donation to their grocery bills. Information on the amount raised locally was not available Thursday afternoon.
According to the Associated Press, the nor’easter that stymied recovery efforts from Superstorm Sandy pulled away from New York and New Jersey Thursday, leaving hundreds of thousands of new people in darkness after a blanket of thick, wet snow snapped storm-weakened trees and downed power lines.
From Brooklyn to storm-battered sections of the Jersey shore and Connecticut, about 750,000 customers — more than 200,000 from the new storm — in the region were without power in temperatures near freezing, some living for days in the dark.
Roads in New Jersey and New York City were clear for the morning commute, and rail lines into New York were running smoothly so far, despite snow still coming down heavily in some areas.
The nor’easter, as promised, brought gusting winds, rain and snow, but not the flooding that was anticipated.
In New Jersey, there were about 400,000 power outages early Thursday; 150,000 of those were new. In New York City and Westchester, more than 70,000 customers were without power after the storm knocked out an additional 55,000 customers.
For Consolidated Edison, the extra outages were dealt with swiftly, so there were only about 3,000 additional customers without power from the total Wednesday of 67,000.
Residents from Connecticut to Rhode Island saw 3 to 6 inches of snow on Wednesday. Worcester, Mass., had 8 inches of snow, and Freehold, N.J., had just over a foot overnight. Some parts of Connecticut got a foot or more.
However, there was good weather news: temperatures over the next few days will be in the 50s in southern New England, said meteorologist Frank Nocera, and on Sunday it could edge into the 60s.
Ahead of the storm, public works crews in New Jersey built up dunes to protect the stripped and battered coast, and new evacuations were ordered in a number of communities already emptied by Sandy. New shelters opened.
Airlines canceled at least 1,300 U.S. flights in and out of the New York metropolitan area, causing a new round of disruptions that rippled across the country.
Sandy killed more than 100 people in 10 states, with most of the victims in New York and New Jersey.
– The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Post a Comment