By Ken Stickney

ken.stickney@panews.com

Janie Johnson and her United Way of Mid & South Jefferson County staff have come a long way since last September — all the way from the 360-square-foot trailer in the parking lot to back inside their building on Golf Hill in Port Arthur.

“That’s a long way since Harvey,” she said, relaxed inside the renovated, 2,700-square-foot office that the United Way has called home for more than a decade. The staff has been back inside the building for a couple of weeks.

Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey poured 3 feet of water inside UW’s headquarters last August; about 15 inches remained for several days.

“That’s just enough to make everything below your knees slimy,” Johnson, executive director, said. “When you opened the doors and opened drawers up, it was like ‘Ghostbusters’ — pure slime everywhere.”

Damage all over

Johnson said United Way’s headquarters sustained damage from wind, lightning and flooding. Damage took all of the insurance the agency held to get the building back intact — and then some. When insurance balked at tearing down the walls, for example, Golden Pass LNG sent a work crew to United Way to help out.

Last August, with Harvey still in the Gulf of Mexico, the office staff was prepped for the 2018 United Way campaign kickoff. The office was loaded with supplies — brochures and banners, T-shirts and special events rack cards, envelopes and bags — lost. All was lost. Office furniture was ruined, files lost.

In all, she said, the office lost about $5,000 in campaign supplies, small change compared to the $230,000-$250,000 in damages suffered by the building. Ironically, she said, the campaign supplies came in just a couple of days before Harvey’s arrival.

She said one staff member loaded up some materials and brought some usable items to her Nederland home. Johnson herself loaded up her vehicle and carried some salvageable items to her mother-in-law’s home in Orange, which escaped damage.

The trailer arrived in the parking lot in mid-September — 360 square feet for four full-time employees. Prior to that, they had set up office under the summer sun on a folding table near their building. That was a challenge. So was the trailer.

“It barely fit the four of us,” she said. Board members had to bring their own chairs to meetings.

Back to work

Yet the agency fared well, especially for people who depended upon them. Johnson said this United Way collected about 150,000 pounds of supplies in the early days after the storm, oftentimes depending upon the wider United Way network. Sometimes they secured supplies through their own initiative and sometimes through the unsolicited kindness of strangers.

United Way in New Orleans sent the first 18-wheeler with supplies — unsolicited. Most of what they sent was based on their own experiences with Hurricane Katrina in 2005. They sent cleaning supplies, diapers, buckets, snacks, water.

Other agencies sent supplies from the East Coast, the West Coast and points in between. UW shared some dry storage space with the city in downtown Port Arthur and distributed goods quickly to help local people cope.

Johnson said she started contacting other United Ways as early as Aug. 30, distributing lists of needed supplies.

“That’s where it got very interesting,” she said. “I had not seen that side of United Way before.

“Here we were, no office, trying to find out immediate needs of our community. We were under water, still. That’s when New Orleans called. They still check on us; they call or email us every couple of weeks to make sure we are all right.”

Better building

Johnson said repairs included renovations to the building, enabling the staff to move back into a facility more suited for the United Way of 2018 than the original building was.

Now they have a stairwell instead of a ladder to their storage space in the attic. They’ve refashioned their entranceway, making it more suitable and helping them maximize work time. They resized some offices.

The experience taught the staff about how to better operate in hurricanes. They used disaster funds to assist the community with temporary housing and utility assistance. They initiated a program to help people get supplies so they could return to their jobs and support their families. They distributed gift cards to help with building supplies, tools, furnishing, appliances.

They learned how to secure aid quickly and distribute it double-quick. They became adept at linking those with needs with those who had time and resources.

And that United Way campaign that was just about to start when Harvey arrived? It was temporarily suspended as the community got its bearings and United Way shifted gears to meet community needs; then it reignited with new zest. The goal was $1.3 million; the campaign raised $1.5 million, including the first ever $1 million campaign at Valero.

“We didn’t get into a rush,” she said about the long renovation period. “We took our time. It worked for us.

“Those last two months in trailer, though, we were rushing.”