Pittsburgh-Area Organizations Sending Supplies, Volunteers For Hurricane Assistance
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- At least a dozen volunteers from western Pennsylvania are heading to Texas to help the Red Cross with Hurricane Harvey assistance.
The Brother's Brother Foundation is shipping supplies Sunday.
"Those items include bottled water, thermal blankets and cleaning supplies," Luke Hingson, with the Brother's Brother Foundation, said.
Rev. Ron Davidson with Gleaning For The World, an affiliate of Brother's Brother, has aid ready to leave from Virginia.
"We have a tractor trailer load of baby supplies. We've got several tractor trailer loads of water and disaster blankets," he said. "We're trying to get some cleaning material lined up."
While the hurricane may have weakened, getting aid to those in need won't be easy because of continuous rain. Authorities are predicting the area could get up to 40 inches well into next week.
There is concern that flooding could stop tractor trailers from reaching their destinations.
"We're going to have about a 48 hour window that we can get supplies into Houston, but right now, you would lose your tractor trailer if you put it down there," Davidson said.
Brother's Brother is asking for donations to help pay rising shipping costs.
"Some of the items we're trying to ship from the eastern part of the United States might cost $3,000 to $4,000 to get it there because trucking costs are what they are," Hingson said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has opened a Hurricane Harvey emergency operations center in the federal building downtown.
The center is providing generators at public facilities like hospitals and fire stations.
"The flooding in the area will make it difficult to get to the facilities without power to the facilities as well as to install the generators," Jim Christ with the Army Corps of Engineers said.