RL Persons Construction employees traveled to Bremen, Kentucky, with trucks of supplies and heavy equipment to join cleanup efforts last weekend.
The Poplar Bluff company’s owner, Randy Persons, put out a call on Facebook the week before for donations to take with them. Food, water, pet chow and more items donated by Southeast Missouri residents poured in. Its largest donation was a brand new trailer full of generators and chainsaws. Its most distant donation came from Dallas, Texas.
On Saturday, Persons, along with employees and family, hauled the goods to Bremen in several trucks. They found the Butler County area’s generosity was echoed elsewhere, so the need was not as urgent as it had been a few days ago.
Persons said they handed over their donations for distribution anyway, noting “It’s there if they need it.”
He confirmed the Bremen area, like much of western Kentucky, was devastated.
“It was mass chaos, mass destruction where we went, but it was very humbling” to work with so many other volunteers, he said. He met Boy Scout troops, senior citizens, and people from all ages in between, some of whom came from as far away as South Carolina, Oklahoma and Ohio to work for a day, a weekend or whatever they could.
“It was amazing to see the country itself come in and lend a hand,” he said.
Persons noted they were about a week too late for the really heavy lifting, and some roads were mostly clear of downed trees and other hazards.
They focused on further breaking down and removing debris from roadways for traffic and right of ways for linemen making repairs. They left when local EMS announced FEMA and FEMA contractors were coming in to take over the work.
The RL Persons Construction team’s most popular member was Blue the dog, who rode with her handler, Dean Ngarotata, in a dump truck for most of the weekend. Blue is a trained cadaver dog, but her certification expired last year and Ngarotata has not had time to renew it. Instead, her role on the trip was a cheerier one: moral support for everyone she met.
“Wherever (she) was able to get out of the truck, (she) was a hit,” Persons said.