Maine notebook

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The American Red Cross has sent 30 volunteers from Maine to the Gulf Coast disaster zone and is working to provide housing to refugees displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

“Of the 30 [volunteers] who have left from Maine, 16 are from our area,” Suzan Bell, executive director of the Pine Tree chapter of the American Red Cross, said Wednesday.

The Pine Tree chapter is based in Bangor and covers the state from Newport north and east.

Katrina refugees are starting to arrive in Maine. Unconfirmed reports place one case, or family unit, in the Pine Tree chapter, one at the midcoast office in Topsham, seven at the United Valley chapter in Augusta and 16 at the Southern Maine chapter in Portland.

“Each family or individual unit of people is one case,” Bell explained. “It could be one person or 20 depending on the size of the family.”

Practically all of the open cases are families that have relatives or friends within Maine, Eric Sawyer, spokesman for the Southern Maine chapter, said Wednesday.

“Most have family up here, but we’re providing support [including] food and clothing – just the basic needs,” he said. “We haven’t done much housing.”

The agency has been inundated with calls from residents who want to help and is working hard to train volunteers.

Bell said 75 volunteers are in the process of being trained and another class is being set up, so by the end of September the Red Cross will probably have 100 ready to go, if called.

The Maine Turnpike Authority has announced that beginning Friday, bright orange buckets will be hung at every staffed toll lane at each of the turnpike’s 19 toll plazas from York to Augusta.

Motorists can contribute coins, bills and checks made out to the American Red Cross-Hurricane Katrina Relief Fund. The fundraising effort, called “Road to Recovery,” will run from Friday to Wednesday, Sept. 17.

There are 52 staffed toll lanes along the turnpike. The buckets won’t be available at automatic coin lanes or dedicated E-ZPass Lanes.

A group of businesses has contributed to the campaign. The Home Depot has contributed the buckets; Brink’s armored trucks will pick up and transport the donations; KeyBank will maintain the funds in an account; Swardlick Marketing Group is designing and placing advertising; HMS Host will make buckets available at six turnpike restaurant locations; and CN Brown will do the same at turnpike service stations.

The turnpike electronic message boards, radio station and Web site also will promote the campaign.

On Wednesday, the 220 kindergarten through eighth grade pupils enrolled at All Saints Catholic School in Bangor raised $1,624 to support Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, according to Principal Marcia Diamond. The money was raised in an offertory taken during the regular weekly Wednesday services attended by the children at St. John’s and St. Mary’s Catholic churches. The funds will be distributed through Catholic Charities Maine.

Good Samaritan Agency and Ofelia’s Community Resource Center have joined forces to collect children’s items for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Staff is looking to collect gift cards to Wal-Mart and Toys-R-Us, new toys, backpacks, school supplies, clothing, blankets, pillows, baby formula, diapers, wipes, and non-perishable food items. A truck trailer donated by Maine Trailer Inc. of Bangor will be parked outside Sam’s Club in Bangor from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, where donations can be dropped off.

A truck cab and driver also have been donated from Maine Motor Transport Association of Augusta to transport the items, possibly as soon as early next week, to the affected southern states. An exact destination hasn’t been confirmed, but volunteers from Ofelia’s are planning to drive a van down in addition to the truck to help distribute the items.

Donations can be dropped off at Sam’s Club this weekend, or at Ofelia’s at 1372 Union St., Bangor. Anyone with questions about what to donate should contact Cathi Sinclair at the Good Samaritan Agency at 942-7211 or 941-8789.

Brewer Fire Chief Rick Bronson has volunteered to take the lead with Hurricane Katrina disaster relief for the entire city, and he has enlisted his many firefighters to lend a hand.

“While a number of the firefighters would like to go to assist in the relief efforts, the fact is plenty of personnel have become available for the assistance effort,” Bronson said Wednesday. “As a result, the firefighters are organizing a relief effort by providing money to help the victims.”

Firefighters are asking city and school employees, residents and firefighters from the area to donate funds that will be combined into one and will be given to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund.

The fundraising effort will be open throughout September and will end at Brewer Days, Sept. 30-Oct. 1, where a bucket brigade will make its way through the crowds to top off the monthlong effort to help the storm victims.

People who want to donate can do so by stopping by the fire department at 122 South Main St. or the finance department at City Hall, 80 North Main St. Donations can also be made on the city’s Web site: www.brewerme.org.

With thousands feared dead in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, 30 Maine members of the New England Region’s Disaster Mortuary Team, or DMORT, have been called to the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast and more resources are being sent daily, officials are saying.

“We’ve been notified that four firefighters from Ogunquit, in York County, have been deployed through the U.S. Fire Administration,” Lynette Miller, Maine Emergency Management Agency spokeswoman, said Wednesday. “We have no other new EMAC [Emergency Management Assistance Compact] deployments.”

DMORT’s task is to provide victim identification and mortuary services under the National Disaster Medical System. While in the Gulf Coast, team members will set up and run temporary morgues, will identify victims and process and dispose of remains.

A retired pathologist, under the auspices of the state medical examiner’s office and DMORT, was scheduled to leave for the region Wednesday afternoon.Some scheduled departures have been canceled, leaving volunteers and others waiting, Miller said.

“The satellite communication [vehicle] was canceled, and we have a large law enforcement contingent that is still on hold,” she said, adding, “There are a number of folks from volunteer agencies including the Red Cross and Salvation Army.”

Maine participates in the EMAC, which functions as a resource managing tool for disaster-stricken areas and has been compiling a list of requests from EMAC to match with available state resources that can be directed toward relief efforts.

With Maine’s Northeast location, requests for help from the Gulf Coast have been limited because resources from states closer to the devastation have been requested first, but every day more Mainers and resources leave the state for the storm-shattered region.

So far, the list also includes: four Department of Conservation volunteers, two driving fuel trucks and two trained in incident management; two York County firefighters; six medical and paramedical professionals from Maine with the Disaster Medical Assistance Team in the Northeast; and two or three Maine volunteers with the Federal Emergency Management Agency urban search and rescue team based in Beverly, Mass.

Two firefighters from Winslow headed to Atlanta on Tuesday for training in the flood response effort. The firefighters, Kevin Fredette and Karl Roy, were not sure of their exact duties but said they could involve going door to door to check for survivors.

Three rangers from Acadia National Park heeded a call for help from the National Park Service and joined federal hurricane relief efforts in the Gulf Coast.

Kevin Langley, the park’s fee manager, left Maine Tuesday to spend two to four weeks in affected areas. Langley is part of the National Park Service’s regional critical stress incident debriefing team.

“He’s been trained in counseling to deal with stress,” Ranger Mike Wilson said.

Two seasonal law enforcement rangers, Paul Borlin and Aaron Arsenault, were sent to Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to work a security detail with other national park rangers.

“They asked for 150 [rangers] nationwide and Acadia sent two,” Wilson said.

The two left Friday and found that the disaster lived up to its advance billing.

“I got one message from them; they said it’s pretty ugly,” Wilson said.

The men are guarding a FEMA food and water supply depot.

Park officials said they expect more rangers to be sent down South before relief and cleanup efforts are done.

Police officers from all over Hancock County are hoping to gather a truckful of donations for hurricane victims this weekend.

Donated goods will be collected from 3 p.m. Friday afternoon through Sunday evening at the Ellsworth Hannaford’s grocery store. The goods will be shipped to Biloxi, Miss., where they will be distributed to needy people.

Officers said that water, non-perishable food items, baby food, diapers and bug repellent are all on their wish list.

– From Staff and Wire Reports