As Pittsburghers in Florida wait out Hurricane Ian, Brother’s Brother sending supplies to impacted areas
As they ride out the storm, the Pittsburgh-based Brother’s Brother Foundation is working to get much-needed drinking water and supplies down to Florida.
As they ride out the storm, the Pittsburgh-based Brother’s Brother Foundation is working to get much-needed drinking water and supplies down to Florida.
As they ride out the storm, the Pittsburgh-based Brother’s Brother Foundation is working to get much-needed drinking water and supplies down to Florida.
Many people in our area have loved ones visiting Florida right now, or living there, in Hurricane Ian's path.
As they ride out the storm, the Pittsburgh-based Brother’s Brother Foundation is working to get much-needed drinking water and supplies down to Florida.
“It’s like a freight train coming through sometimes. It’s eerie,” Monica Steratore Kemper said.
Kemper is waiting out the impact of Hurricane Ian in Naples, where she began seeing major flooding in the early evening hours.
“It’s up to 6 feet on the streets right now, a little over 6 feet,” Kemper said
Todd Williams was visiting Marco Island from his home in Pine Township but was forced to evacuate Tuesday night.
“The thing with a hurricane is, things happen so fast. The airport shut down. You couldn’t get a flight,” Williams said.
He’s one of nearly two million people without power, but his fear is for others.
“For family and friends and people we don’t know in Florida, we’re praying for them and worried about them,” Williams said.
At one point Wednesday evening, hurricane-force winds reportedly reached 155 miles per hour in Fort Myers.
“As it happens, we have a board member who is actually in Fort Myers right now that we are in contact with,” Ozzy Samad said. “It’s just unreal in terms of the water that’s coming in.”
Samad is president of the Brother’s Brother Foundation. His team wasted no time gathering cases of water and pallets of tarps to send down to Florida.
“What we also do is work with our local food banks to see if we can ship food down to them and what the needs are,” Samad said.
Samad said any donations made to Brother’s Brother go 100% to disaster response.