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SERVPRO teams head to serve Hurricane Matthew flood victims
By Kalea Hall
WARREN
While flooding and flooding fears from Hurricane Matthew continue along the East Coast, SERVPRO franchises here and elsewhere are en route to help.
The goal is to help as many homeowners and business owners as possible with flooding and water damage.
“So far, we are on 35 properties,” said Katie Dobson, co-owner of SERVPRO of east Mahoning County on Wednesday morning. “It’s pretty extensive. Most of the them, the entire homes have been flooded.”
The company provides fire and water cleanup and restoration services as well as mold mitigation and remediation.
Dobson owns a franchise with her husband, Andrew. Her father-in-law, Jimmy Dobson, owns SERVPRO locations in west Mahoning County, Trumbull County and Ashtabula County.
Together, they teamed up this week and decided to make the nine-hour drive to areas in North Carolina affected by the hurricane waters. A team was sent out Monday and another one was sent out Wednesday.
Nationwide, the company has more than 1,700 franchises. When a disaster hits, its Disaster Recovery Team goes to help local franchises in the affected areas with cleanup. Teams were sent from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
SERVPRO has sent out teams to help with the 2016 Louisiana flooding, 2016 Houston flooding and the 2015 polar vortex.
“We are there to help as many people as we can and get people back into their homes and businesses as quickly as possible,” said Kim Brooks, corporate communications specialist for the company.
The company will go into a flooded house and remove as much water as physically possible. Then, material that cannot be saved is removed from the building.
“When you are dealing with flood waters, they are grossly contaminated,” Dobson said.
Next, SERVPRO sanitizes the area and then places dehumidifiers to dry it out.
“A lot of people are without power so that’s another element in the situation,” Dobson said. “We brought down generators and fuel trailers.”
The local crews will come back and switch out with other crews after a couple of weeks.
Dobson is back in the office here taking calls from customers.
“I feel so bad listening to everyone,” she said. “It’s just devastating. Their homes are completely flooded.”
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said Wednesday there are now 20 confirmed fatalities caused by Hurricane Matthew’s impact in the state.
The state has received more federal disaster declarations to help residents in certain areas, and evacuations have been ordered in some parts where flooding is expected, like the city of Greenville and the Black River Basin.
Hurricane Matthew has impaired or destroyed more than 1 million structures, and the storm probably caused $10 billion in damage, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The hurricane is believed to have caused more than 30 deaths in the U.S.