A personal plea for hurricane relief

Forrest Koder is a very gifted city planner and landscape architect.  He currently serves as Senior Planner for the City of Kingsport, Tennessee.  He has been a blessing to our community and now we have an opportunity to return the favor in a small, but meaningful way. He is a native of Bristol, but lived and worked in Slidell, Louisiana for 35 years.  Therefore, the hurricane relief effort is very personal to him.  Many of his friends, family and former co-workers have been directly impacted.  Will you help?  Read on.  Thanks, Jeff

 

Contact:

Forrest Koder at koder@ci.kingsport.tn.us

423-229-9486 office

423-229-9485 secretary

423-538-6014 home

 

Deliveries to:

The Improvement Building

City of Kingsport -- Development Services Center

201 West Market Street (corner of Market & Shelby)

Kingsport, TN 37660

 

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Former Louisiana resident planning relief mission
Friday, September 09, 2005

By MATTHEW LANE
Times-News

KINGSPORT - Forrest Koder has a personal interest in helping the people of Slidell, La. That's because he called the city home for more than three decades.

Koder, a Kingsport city planner, lived in Slidell for 35 years and worked as an assistant planning director before moving to the Tri-Cities about four years ago. Koder has friends who live in Slidell, as well as his mother and sister's family.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region last week, the eye of the storm passed over the small Louisiana city, destroying homes and businesses and leaving many of its 30,000 residents without food, water and power.

Over the Labor Day weekend, Koder said he decided to do more to help the people of Slidell.

"We did hygiene bags for the church, and I looked at my wife and said that's not enough. We've got to do more," Koder said. "I told her that I wanted to take a truck of supplies to Slidell."

Koder returned to work on Tuesday and began making calls and pulling people together to make his idea a reality - to send a truckload of supplies to the people of Slidell.

Koder said a couple of local developers stepped forward and secured a 26-foot U-Haul truck for him, which can hold 10 tons of material. The city of Kingsport has donated 1,000 gallons of water, King Pharmaceuticals has agreed to package the water for transport, while city employees have been donating hygiene products, water and snack foods to fill the truck. A couple of local churches are also interested in helping him, Koder said.

"The response has been overwhelming," Koder said.

Koder said he intends to leave Kingsport about 3 a.m. on Sept. 16 and drive straight through to Slidell and deliver the supplies to the city's drop-off zone.

"We're coming right back the next day," he said. "They don't need additional bodies down there right now."

Anyone wanting to donate items to Koder can contact him at 229-9486. The truck will also be parked at Kingsport's Development Services office on Sept. 14 if people wish to drop off items.

"I'm hoping I can fill that truck to the top," he said.

Koder said the items he is taking to the people of Slidell include water, juice, small snack items, canned goods with flip-top lids, and hygiene products such as soap, washcloths, toothpaste and deodorant.

"There's been a lot of requests to give building materials. I've been told they're not to that stage yet, that they're still in survival mode," Koder said. "There's no water and sewer and limited power. In talking with a building official down there and one of the members of the police department - they're still in survival mode."

Before the hurricane made landfall last Monday, Koder said his mother and sister's family managed to get out of Slidell, evacuating north to Montgomery, Ala., and then, two days later, to Shreveport, La.

"My brother-in-law said it is like a war zone down there. He said it's the worst thing to ever happen - total devastation," Koder said. "Because of the high water in New Orleans, the power trucks are working in Mississippi and the North Shore. They're expected to have power re-established much sooner than originally anticipated."

Koder said he lived through Hurricanes Betsy and Camille and others of varying sizes, but nothing the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina.

"I feel for those people," he said. "It's one of those things where we kept wondering, when we were watching this thing on TV, when were they going to talk about the North Shore. We kept wondering ‘why?'"