CLEVELAND — Hurricane Ian may be on the move, and the storm's devastation not yet over, but that hasn't stopped Ohioans from helping in relief efforts right now.
Be it Fiona or Ian, the United States has seen two significant storms over the last two weeks. Now comes the hard part, rebuilding those affected areas.
"Communication has been an issue. There also blocked roads and the mudslides don't allow crews to get to where they need to get to to fix the power. So they've been without power and water as well," Reinaldo DeJesus with the New Era Young Lords said of the damage sustained in Puerto Rico.
Rosa Morales-Cruz and the New Era Young Lords have been collecting donations for a week and Thursday night marked their big fundraiser with the goal of bringing generators and necessities with them as they head to Puerto Rico in October.
"We try to smile about it because we know we're doing something good but deep inside our hearts we're sad that this is happening once again to our country," Morales-Cruz said.
And while they still have a couple days left of fundraising and accepting donations, AEP Ohio already has about 600 crews down south ready to help restore power as soon as they're cleared.
"Their training and expertise is in restoring power and upgrading our systems, so the work they're doing isn't that much different, it's just more the environmental, you know down there they're dealing with swamps and alligators," AEP Customer Experience Manager Jay Garrett said.
Garrett says they are one of the special businesses where a company name doesn't matter when it comes down to helping after a natural disaster.
"We benefit the same when we have storms up here and through mutual assistance, those crews that are helping Florida come up and help us restore power here," Garrett said.
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