Wednesday Update

KLTV ran a story last night on a family they identified as living in Camp County and was reporting that this family could get no help. They had applied for food stamps but had not asked for any food assistance from the community council or anyone else that I can find. Had they asked, they would have been helped. Not only have we been providing shelter to those coming in but we have been providing food from both the community council as well as Emmanuel’s food pantries. The food has been provided to folks both inside and outside of Camp County. The money raised and in the account at Pilgrim bank has been used to pay for medications as well as buying fuel for an ambulance that was transferring patients to ETMC.

I contacted KLTV and asked for the contact information for this family; they would not give it to me but said they would give them our contact information. I told the reporter that I believed this story painted our community in an unfair light and that they needed to do a follow up on all that everyone has done during this event.

Now to update

• The evacuees staying at the First United Methodist Church were able to go home yesterday, we closed this shelter
• We received 13 more people from the Vidor area into the shelter at Emmanuel last night, they had seven dogs and the Vet clinic provided cages and other supplies to support these folks
• There are special needs folks staying in the Pittsburg Nursing Center, South Wind Assisted Living Center, and ETMC has received patients from the impacted area
• The Food pantries have been providing food for people living in the County as well as some staying at Bob Sandlin State Park
• Bob Sandlin said they only have 30 evacuees at the park, the local Brownie Troop took some gift cards to these folks
• The hurricane relief fund that the Chamber of Commerce has set up at Pilgrim bank has been used to buy medicines for evacuees and to refuel an ambulance making transfers to ETMC Pittsburg, we need to get this fund up some as there will be more call for financial aid before this is over.

Martin A. Pessink
Chief of Police
Pittsburg Police Department

Additional comments from Richard Heyduck:
The needs will be with us for a while. First United Methodist is helping with the feeding of evacuees in Winnsboro tonight. They've had folks since Katrina, so they've been longer term than others. Since Emmanuel's shelter is till open, it may be worthwhile to check with them and see what support that need from the community.