BILOXI — Mississippi Power Co., the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and the south Mississippi chapter of the American Red Cross have sent workers to help with Hurricane Irene.
The Sun Herald said 60 Mississippi Power employees left Friday for a two-day drive to Washington. They”ll be helping Pepco Holdings Inc., a major energy company serving the mid-Atlantic region. The workers include line crews and support personnel.
State emergency management response director Tom McAllister will be in Washington for two weeks to help coordinate resources in a national response effort.
“My job in this disaster is to make sure states engaged in the emergency have resources available prior to landfall. If a state is stretched thin in an area, we reach out to other states to bring in the resources they need so response and recovery efforts can continue,” McAllister said in a MEMA news release.
The South Mississippi chapter of the American Red Cross deployed two emergency response vehicles to the coast of North Carolina on Thursday. The mobile units will be able to get hot meals, water, ice, clean-up kits and other supplies to areas affected by the hurricane, said Red Cross spokeswoman Megan Burkes.
Burkes said additional volunteers and staff, from the coast to Hattiesburg, will be sent to North Carolina, Virginia and other states where needed. Deployments typically last three weeks, she said.
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