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In late August, Hurricane Ida, a Category 4 storm, made landfall on the Louisiana coast. It was one of the most powerful hurricanes to ever hit the United States, with winds more than 80 miles per hour within a 50-mile radius. Only 40 miles from the landfall of the storm, in St. Gabriel, Nachurs Alpine Solutions (NAS) has a plant with 20 employees.
Frank Lawson, Vice President of Operations at NAS, immediately got to work ensuring that employees and their families were safe. Fortunately, all our employees and their families were safe. Unfortunately, they were all greatly impacted. Almost everyone was without electricity, potable water, and cell phone service in the days after the hurricane. "We were able to get in touch with plant management immediately after the storm cleared, and the first thing we proceeded to do was look at what we were going to need to do to provide assistance to the employees,” Frank said.
Luckily, assistance was only one state away thanks to the resources of our parent company Wilbur-Ellis. Although Nachurs Alpine Solutions doesn’t have any other plants in the southern United States, employees from the Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition facility in Kaufman County, TX volunteered to help. They immediately got to work on obtaining packages of resources for the relief effort.
"Within hours, the two teams had already connected, communicated, and put a plan together to try and help our teammates in St. Gabriel,” said Pedro Curry, Chief Operation Officer of Wilbur-Ellis Nutrition.
Within days of learning about the situation, the Kaufman County employees had gathered pallets of water, food, generators, and many other basic implements. They were trucked to Louisiana, where a gracious team from NAS had traveled to receive them.
"Those employees not only donated personal time, but many of them also volunteered their own vehicles in order to achieve this," said Curry.
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Ida was a tragedy, but the teamwork and generosity of the Wilbur Ellis Nutrition and Nachurs Alpine Solutions employees shows how strong our community can be. We are all One Wilbur-Ellis, and we work best together.