Throughout Aberdeen and Hoquiam on Friday, construction orange was everywhere. Home Depot employees in orange T-shirts were busy lifting shovels of mud, piles of debris and ripped out, soggy drywall into dumpsters and buckets, volunteering their sunny day away in an effort to clean up the cities after Monday’s devastating flood.
“At the end of the day, it comes down to our company values, and one of those is giving back to our community,” said James Eccles, Home Depot South Seattle District manager. “Without our community, we wouldn’t be able to survive from a retail standpoint, and this is really all about giving back.”
The efforts weren’t localized to the Aberdeen store — all 11 stores from the South Seattle District had volunteers, some 70-80 employees, from removed communities like Tumwater and Chehalis, investing sweat into the Harbor’s rebound from the flood. Eccles and the district’s Operations Manager Kyle Kucera also were on the scene helping to clean out a home on West Second Street.
“Our favorite thing to do is help out our communities,” Kucera said.
The other stores in the South Seattle District are Tacoma, North Tacoma, Olympia, Puyallup, Gig Harbor, Bonnie Lake, Spanaway and Lacey.
Home Depot organized the Friday cleanup, but the company did not function as an individual entity. More than 130 volunteers working in 10 teams, individual community members and businesses alike, came together on Friday to help the efforts.
Pasha Automotive, which operates from the Port of Grays Harbor, had 16 volunteers working with the Home Depot crews.
“Some of our guys from work got hit pretty hard by this, and we just wanted to help out our community,” Pasha Lead Jace Coleman said. “It was spur-of-the-moment — we got together in a meeting and asked who wanted to do it and everybody stepped up. The guys that aren’t here are probably out doing the same thing somewhere else.”
At an apartment building on Sumner Avenue, Wal-Mart Assistant Manager Sergio Esquivel was part of a crew salvaging and boxing the personal items of flooded elderly and disabled residents who were displaced from their homes by the flood. Whatever couldn’t be saved was loaded in truck beds and trailers and then disposed of. In total, the cleanup had resulted in more 5,000 pounds of disposed waste from Hoquiam alone by Friday evening. Five dumpsters in Aberdeen had yet to be dumped.
“This has been my home for 24 years,” Esquivel said. “I owe a lot to this community, and this community has given me a lot — when I first came to the area, I didn’t even speak English and the local Wal-Mart hired me and now I’m a corporate team member.”
The people Esquivel’s team were helping could have been the same people who have made him feel welcomed in his past 24 years on the Harbor.
“I know a lot of the people in the community,” he said. “When I see them come into the store, sometimes the senior citizens will give me a hug — they’re my family.”
Taking the organizational lead for Home Depot was Associate Support Department Supervisor Brandy Smith, frantically moving from team to team and fielding calls from additional volunteers, making sure people were in the places that needed the most help from a list she had compiled of more than 40 homes throughout the two cities (at North Williams Street, Duffy Street, West Fifth Street, Sumner Avenue, Queets Avenue, Calhoun Road, Oak Street). By the end of Friday, Smith expected 21 of the homes would be completed.
“Some are really simple things like lifting and bagging items in garages and basements,” Smith said. “Most of the people we’re helping are unable to lift because they’re elderly or disabled.”
The Hoquiam Fire Department, by all accounts deserving of a vacation after Monday’s flood, volunteered their manpower, as did Timberland Bank. A veteran-based nonprofit, Team Rubicon, was helping out, and Home Depot could possibly pass leadership to that organization on Saturday. Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also were working with teams.
Home Depot had donated garbage bags, bleach for the Red Cross cleaning kits, gloves and masks for cleanup efforts, boxes, packing tape, drinking water and “anything and everything people need,” Smith said.
At noon, Domino’s Pizza in Hoquiam donated enough pizza to feed 300 people. Passport Cafe in Hoquiam also donated food for volunteers, and Wal-Mart sent a party sandwich and cupcakes.
At lunch, with hot pizza in their hands, volunteers took a breather, soaking in the sun, smiling, laughing and reflecting on a morning of difficult but rewarding labor. Home Depot employees, missionaries, Wal-Mart employees, Pasha employees, community members, high school students, all with muddy boots, were huddled in separate groups but together in their service.
“I love that our community is coming together,” Hoquiam High School senior Sarah Schmidt said. “Through tough times we band together and help each other out.”
Back at West Second Street, U.S. Army veteran Caleb Thetford and his family were directly feeling the positive impacts of the operations throughout town.
“It’s kind of overwhelming to wake up and see an army of volunteers at your door saying ‘We’re here to help,’ ” Thetford said. “This would have taken me two to three days to do what they did in an hour.”
The Thetfords’ basement took on 14 to 17 inches of water in the flood, destroying bed frames, dressers and a hot-water tank. The crew was ripping out soaked drywall and laminate after clearing out mud left behind by the receding water.
Even after the cleanup, there will be much left to do at the Thetfords.
“There’s a lifetime of things we’ll be going through, including family heirlooms, to figure out what we’ve lost,” Thetford said.
“There’re no words for it,” Thetford said. “As bad as we’ve got it, there are people who’ve got it worse, and as much as I’ve lost, I can’t imagine losing an entire home.”
Some of the volunteers could relate. Pasha Processor Zack Payne, part of a team working at a different location, had suffered significant damage to his home and was out helping on Friday.
For Payne, like most of the other volunteers and many community members, it felt good to see the efforts of a community coming together.
“It’s pretty cool that so many people came out to help,” he said. “It’s a really good crowd.”
Volunteers continued to trickle in on Friday afternoon.
Cleanup days are scheduled for Saturday and Sunday. Volunteers are asked to meet the Aberdeen Home Depot at 8 a.m. on both days. Those unable to arrive at 8 a.m. can still volunteer at the Aberdeen Home Depot later in the day and will be assigned and directed to an appropriate team already on site.
An upcoming cleanup day is scheduled for next Saturday, Jan. 17, beginning at 8 a.m. and meeting at the Aberdeen Home Depot.
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