METRO Rescues Elderly & Sick Before & After Ike
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 4:55 PM
While most Houstonians were hunkering down to shelter in place as officials advised, METRO bus operators and mechanics were working to rescue the sick, elderly and frail - before and after the hurricane.
"We've had an amazing group of bus operators and mechanics who were on standby. These bus bus operators and mechanics working up until Monday have been voluntary - they were paid, but they volunteered to do this relief work," said Gwen Johnson, operations special projects manager. Staff wanted to help, offering to take assignments that were not their regular route.
As of yesterday, at least 1, 700 people were rescued and transported to either the George R. Brown Convention Center or area schools as shelters of last resort. Some residents, suffering from hurricane fatigue, simply didn't want to evacuate, even though they were in evacuation zones. But after the storm, they realized they couldn't stay in place, and METRO was there to help.
METROLift staff called residents who had been registered on the city's 211 hotline for evacuation - and called each name listed twice, offering evacuation. METROLift also assisted other special needs residents who did not live in evacuation zones, but needed rescue/relief due to medical needs or health issues, said Johnson.
Tomorrow, METROLift will expand its services and transport qualified patrons to grocery stores and relief centers, in addition to medical appointments.
METRO sustained very little damage to its buses because of a pre-hurricane plan to move our buses to a safe place before the hurricane made landfall.
Today, we are winding down our relief effort and instead, directing our focus to restoring full bus service by tomorrow. METRORail is being serviced by bus. Crews have been out on the roads, assessing damage and reporting downed power lines. We have been watching our fuel reserves hourly.
Click here to see the routes that are operating today. (If the link isn't showing up, please go to the home page of our Web site, and click "METRO Responds"). We added 25 routes today to the 12 that were running on Sunday. You'll also find the Park & Ride schedule. We resumed Airport Direct service today.
Starting tomorrow, we will be running buses on their normal schedule, although for safety, they will stop at every intersection.
To our quiet heroes who are driving and maintaining our METRO buses and to the staff helping this city function again, a heartfelt thank you.
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