Lexington company aiding those affected by Hurricane Ida in Louisiana

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) – Just a year after Hurricane Laura tore through Louisiana…people there were faced with an all too familiar scene, when Hurricane Ida made landfall.

“When Hurricane Ida came through it just added more insult to injury so to speak to these individuals that are still trying to dig out from last year’s hurricane event” said Director of Communications and Logistics, Matt Daley.

Emergency Disaster Services or EDS is a Lexington-based company helping communities hit hard by Ida.

“It’s currently in multiple locations throughout the State of Louisiana.  We have multiple camps and were right now responsible for nearly over 10,000 individuals, both civilians and folks working for the power company that are trying to restore power in this area” said Daley.

Providing socially distanced eating spaces, a warm meal, mobile shelters, bathrooms, laundry and more.

Even teams building multiple antibody infusions sites throughout the area to help with the surging pandemic.

“From my perspective hurricane Ida was much worse than hurricane Laura was” said Daley.

Daley says many people heeded the warning prior to Ida’s arrival, and evacuated.

But, he says there are still hundreds of thousands of people without power, houses torn up, gas shortages and more.

“Hurricanes are becoming more accustomed, they were having a worse time with the pandemic and a hurricane felt more normal to them sadly, and so a lot of folks I think are just prepared and they understand it’s not a quick fix overnight.”

Daley says he expects his teams to be in Louisiana a couple of months.