SCRANTON, Pa. -- As people in Florida brace for impact, relief workers in our area are already headed down south preparing to deal with whatever Hurricane Dorian throws down once it makes landfall.
With a call to arms, the cavalry assembled as nearly 50 PPL employees headed off from PPL's headquarters in Allentown, traveling south to Florida.
With Hurricane Dorian barreling towards Florida's coastline, these workers want to be in place to help pick up whatever Dorian throws down.
“The utilities in Florida called us with a mutual aid assistance program and said we`re going to need some help restoring power after this storm,” said Alana Roberts, a spokesperson for PPL. “We have 36 line workers as part of this contingent of these 45 employees. Two of them are based here in Scranton, we also have employees from Honesdale, from our Pocono service center, one from Wilkes-Barre.”
Our Newswatch 16's assignment desk editor Mary Chuff is vacationing in Jupiter, Florida and is glad to hear PPL is sending manpower.
“Power is the biggest thing that they're concerned about, they really don`t think that they'll lose water necessarily in the town of Jupiter, but power because it gets very hot and rainy,” said Chuff.
Chuff was stunned to see the shortage of necessities at Florida's grocery stores.
“There's no water left, there's no bread left, the shelves are completely bare,” said Chuff. “They're limiting quantities of food that people can buy, I think it was like two cases of water per customer.”
The American Red Cross here in Northeastern Pennsylvania is also sending its troops down south, however, it's sending people to both Florida and Georgia.
Volunteer Daniel Rosato of Scranton is staying in Atlanta, preparing for any evacuees from Florida
“We'll prepare the locations to open up the shelters, get the materials that we need inside, cots, blankets, pillows, set up the food that we need to open up kitchens,” said Rosato.
Both PPL and the Red Cross say workers will be down south as long as needed.