LLA Member Fetter Assists Flood Damaged Town
From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, September 1, 2005:
Local man holding charity drive for small Mississippi town
... he plans to take the donations there himself
In Pass Christian, a small town of around 7,000 on the coast of Mississippi, there has been no contact with any relief effort.
That’s why, on Tuesday evening, Jason Fetter, 27, of Williamsport, decided he would take whatever assistance he could to the community that his girlfriend calls home.
Fetter, a local attorney, met his girlfriend, Melissa McPhail, in Mississippi two years ago while working on a political campaign. Although McPhail now has an apartment in the Williamsport area, she was visiting her family in Pass Christian, which is about 20 minutes west of Gulf Port, when Hurricane Katrina hit.
“It’s really sad. People lost every thing there,” Fetter said. “There are deaths, total losses, and for a lot of the people their houses are just gone.”
Fetter said that the community’s immediate needs are first and foremost, water, then first aid supplies, empty plastic gas cans, batteries and canned food. He is also bringing along a chainsaw and clothing.
His goal is to leave Friday night and meet his girlfriend just outside of the town.
“I’m going to give her stuff, pack her up, give her money and turn around. If I get more than I can carry this time, I hope to make more trips down,” he said. “And whatever I don’t get, I will buy myself.”
McPhail’s grandmother’s house was completely destroyed, washed away in flood waters. Fetter has been in contact with his girlfriend via cell phone and said that she is able to make calls out, but is not yet able to receive incoming calls.
“They were comparing everything to Andrew and Camille at first because they didn’t think it could be worse than that, but it is,” he said. “There has been no electricity and one of my girlfriend’s uncles works at the power plant there and he said, "Pack your bags.”
Fetter decided he would make the 16-hour drive from Williamsport to Pass Christian with a small trailer on his Jeep to bring supplies to McPhail’s family and other stranded residents of the small town.
From 5 to 6:30 p.m. Friday, Fetter will hold a donation drive for Pass Christian at the Door Fellowship Inc. Church parking lot, 470 Pine St.
From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, September 8, 2005:
Two local men take supplies to ravaged Mississippi coast
The devastation is astonishing, but so is inhabitants’ resilience
By MARK MARONEY, Sun-Gazette Staff
Two local residents loaded up a pickup truck and trailer last weekend and drove to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to deliver nonperishable food, 150 cases of bottled water, tools and 35 gallons of gasoline to victims of Hurricane Katrina and those helping them recover.
Jason Fetter, an attorney with McNerny, Page, Vanderlin and Hall, and Chuck Wirth, a Sun-Gazette advertising representative, returned earlier this week from their mission of mercy.
The two had spent about three hours Friday afternoon collecting items in the parking lot of The Door Fellowship Inc., 470 Pine St.
“A lot of people walked up to me and gave me stuff,” Fetter said. They asked if the materials were headed to the Gulf Coast, he said. “People dropped stuff off with tears in their eyes.”
Fetter’s collection efforts were the subject of a Sun-Gazette article last week. Fetter’s girlfriend, Melissa McPhain, lives with her family near the cities of Pass Christian and Bay St. Louis, Miss., two coastal cities leveled by the hurricane. Fetter also once lived in Jackson, Miss., where he worked for a gubernatorial candidate.
McPhain called Fetter after the hurricane and told him how bad the situation was there. McPhain’s grandmother, like many others, had lost her home. There was little food or clean water, no power and hundreds of vehicles had been damaged or destroyed. McPhain pleaded for help.
“I didn’t have a choice,” Fetter said. “I had to get down there and get her stuff and her community food and water.”
Fetter said he sent several emails to colleagues at the law firm and other area businesses asking for donations.
The McPhain residence was one place where the trailer could be brought without looters stealing it. Water was dropped off to a pathologist at Bay St. Louis, who distributed it to the neighbors.
Fetter and Wirth described the utter devastation they saw.
“It is worse in person,” Fetter said. “It smells and ... the attitudes of people ... you feel their despair.”
The buildings near the water reminded Fetter of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped.
“The bodies are staying there and they are rotting,” he said.
High winds leveled buildings and knocked down power lines and trees several miles inland, Fetter said.
“If Chuck didn’t go it would have been so difficult,” Fetter said of his friend.
Wirth said they entered the area from Mobile, Ala., using Interstate 10, a major highway that was remarkably clear of debris and accessible.
Wirth said he was impressed by the residents’ self-sufficiency and their remarkable sense of humor amidst what seemed like hopeless circumstances.
Downtown Bay St. Louis is now beachfront property, he said. Miles of pavement are covered by sand.
Armies of helicopters could be heard flying at night, Wirth said.
A geographic positioning system unit was being used for retrieving bodies, he said. Buildings were being marked with orange spray paint by the letter X to signify where a body lay.
The storm caught many off guard, Wirth said. The hurricane wobbled in the Gulf of Mexico in the hours before landfall while meteorologists anticipated its track.
It turned eastward from its anticipated path and headed straight for the Mississippi coast. So did category-5 Hurricane Camille in 1969.
Many of those residents who remembered that storm knew what it would take to survive and thought they were prepared. But Katrina was as bad or worse than Camille, Wirth said.
The emergency response along the Mississippi coast came within a day. For Camille, it was more like two weeks, Wirth said.
Wirth said he suspects the attitude of the people there will change as the days move forward. It is sort of like a death in the family, he said.
Their minds are occupied on the individual losses but they will heal and then in a couple of months the grief will set back in, he said.
Fetter said he is planning a second trip because the need in the region remains high. He is seeking someone with access to a trailer or tractor trailer so he can take a larger load.
“We still have supplies,” he said.
From the Williamsport Sun-Gazette, September 15, 2005:
Local lawyer seeking donations for second trip to hurricane-ravaged Mississippi coast
By MARK MARONEY, Sun-Gazette Staff
A local attorney is taking his second trip to transport emergency supplies to the Mississippi coastline.
Jason Fetter, 27, an attorney with McNerny, Page, Vanderlin & Hall, has already traveled once to the home town of his girlfriend, Melissa McPhail, whose family and friends were left with almost nothing after Hurricane Katrina tore through their neighborhood in Pass Christian, Miss., a town of about 7,000.
Fetter and Chuck Wirth, a Sun-Gazette advertising representative, took non-perishable and canned foods, water, tools and gasoline to the region. They toured the locations hit hardest and gave away the supplies, but realized the need was more than the contents of their rental trailer, which Fetter hitched to his Jeep for the16-hour drive.
Fetter said upon his return that he wanted to make a second trip.
Primus Technologies Corp., 2333 Reach Road, has donated a tractor-trailer, he said.
The tractor-trailer will be parked in the parking lot of the Susquehanna Bank drive-up next to Wegmans in the city from noon until 6 p.m. Friday through Sunday, Fetter said. Donations will be accepted during that time. Fetter will leave for Mississippi shortly after. Wirth did not say he planned to accompany Fetter.
Fetter plans to drape a banner on the side of the truck, but hasn’t decided on the wording yet.
“It might say something like ‘Gulf Coast Express,’” he said.
Donated materials will be trucked directly to Delisle Elementary School at Pass Christian, Miss., a common distribution spot for relief supplies, Fetter said.
“People are getting meals ready to eat, water and ice,” he said. “They need such things as non perishable foods and clothing.”
The clothing should be new or like new, he said, and underwear is needed as well as outerwear. Other needs include water, toys in good condition and baby supplies.
“The community response has been tremendous,” Fetter said. Numerous students in several area school districts have held drives to get supplies, he said.
