A cool idea

Sealy fire fighter Chris Kessler gives Chris Brewer two bags of ice Wednesday at the Sealy Wal-Mart SuperCenter. Local officials were handing ice out for free to fulfill the need for it in the wake of Hurricane Ike.

In the days following the landfall of Hurricane Ike, ice has become a sought-after commodity, with many homes remaining without electricity.

So, when the supply of ice began dwindling in Sealy and trucks loaded with it didn’t show up on Tuesday, local emergency service and county officials and the Sealy Wal-Mart SuperCenter took matters into their own hands, according to Austin County Commissioner of Pct. 3 Randy Reichardt.

They searched the county far and wide for anyone with an ice machine who could help make extra ice and set up shop in the entrance to the Wal-Mart garden center. The store also donated bags to use to hand out the ice for free.

“Within an hour we were at Wal-Mart handing out ice,” he said. “Between 5 and 8 p.m. we gave out 5,000 pounds of ice.”

And on Wednesday afternoon, officials and store employees had already handed out about 700 pounds of ice.

“This is a small thing we can do,” Austin County EMS Deputy Director Gary Scarborough said. “Most people are having difficulty finding ice and other goods in their local communities that have been destroyed.”

Some even came all the way from their homes along the Gulf Coast into Sealy just to find needed supplies, according to Sealy volunteer firefighter Chris Kessler.

“A lot of people are coming from Houston to Sealy just to shop,” he said.

Chris Brewer stopped to pick up a few bags of ice after delivering generators to the area for the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA).

And the road didn’t stop there for him. As an employee of Universal Am-Can, he was waiting to load vehicles from BAE to take to South Carolina.

“We’ve been living out of a cooler and we really needed some extra ice,” he said.

And that’s why members of the local fire and police departments and Community Emergency Response Team, along with Wal-Mart employees, decided to lend a hand.

“It’s about neighbors helping neighbors,” Scarborough said.

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