Victims who need some help receive a flood of support

To offer or request cleanup help, call (330) 392-9000.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Mary Ann Stearns thinks of the volunteers who helped clean out her rain-drenched basement as angels.
Six of them showed up Wednesday morning at Stearns' Adelaide Avenue Northeast home to help her and her daughter Melanie, 18, remove items destroyed by last week's heavy rains, which flooded her basement.
Stearns initially thought she and Melanie, the 2003 salutatorian at Warren G. Harding High School, could handle the cleanup from the 8 inches of water and sewage that soaked her basement.
A breast-cancer survivor who's been through divorce and bankruptcy, Stearns is accustomed to adversity, but the challenge proved too daunting, so they called the city's disaster response center.
Established to help city residents unable to do the work themselves remove debris from flooded basements, the phone number to get help or to volunteer is (330) 392-9000. The phone lines have been donated by Sprint.
The volunteers say they just want to help.
Getting to work
Susan Stahl, the wife of the city's emergency response coordinator, Robert Stahl; Mindy Metzger; Janice Krapacs; and Tabatha Johnson pulled on boots, plastic gloves and old clothes and started cleaning basements Monday, the first day of the volunteer effort.
Wednesday marked the first effort for Anthony Nuzzi and Greg Sekula, both senior members of Harding's soccer team.
"I felt so fortunate that I wasn't a victim," said Metzger, of Vienna. "The best way to express gratitude is to try to help other people. I feel privileged to be able to do this."
Krapacs, of Warren, estimated that Stearns' was the 20th basement she'd helped clean out in the last three days. Like Metzger, Krapacs learned of others' hardships caused by flooding, was thankful she was spared and called to volunteer.
"I wanted to help someone who couldn't help themselves," she said.
Johnson, also of Warren, works at Emmanuel Community Care Center in Girard. When calls to that center slowed, volunteers were dispatched to help the Warren flood victims.
What was left
Most of what Stearns had stored in her basement was destroyed. Previous heavy rains had brought trickles into her basement, but the latest storms brought the first damage.
Water seeped from boxes as volunteers lifted them into plastic trash bags.
"I thought I had gotten all the water out," Stearns said, chuckling.
Despite their trouble, the Stearns women remained cheerful, offering cool drinks to the volunteers and providing gloves and rubber boots for those who didn't bring their own.
Furniture, clothes, books, Christmas decorations, electronic equipment and keepsakes all were destroyed by the water.
"These are what you call memories," Stearns said as she opened a box of her daughter's waterlogged childhood toys.
She picked through the saturated box, trying to salvage some of the more cherished pieces.
Most went into plastic bags and were taken to the curb to be lugged to a landfill.
Stearns' washer, dryer and hot water heater survived.
"For that I'm happy," she said.
More to come
Robert Stahl said 20 to 30 homes are scheduled for cleanup this week, and people from individuals to large groups have volunteered to help.
A carpet-cleaning company donated its service to remove the water and sanitize the carpet in one city residence, he said.
"It's been wonderful," he said. "For most people, this is something you couldn't even pay them to do. This is filthy work."
denise.dick@vindy.com