In late September, Hurricane Helene devastated the southeastern portion of the country. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, killing at least 224 people.
Some 96 of those fatalities were in North Carolina. PurAqua Products in Rock Hill, SC, manufacturer of Westlake’s Accu-Tab® and Acid-Rite® systems, is around 2 hours away from where the hurricane took its highest toll in the mountains of North Carolina. Shawn O’Sullivan, CEO of PurAqua Products, and Jon Small, the Territory Sales Manager for Aqua Management Partners (AMP), an Accu-Tab® system affiliate company to PurAqua, spoke with us about how their companies helped people devastated by Hurricane Helene.
Employees of PurAqua and AMP had friends and family in the damaged areas, and they wanted to help. Shawn decided to give all employees of PurAqua and AMP 3 days off if they volunteered to assist with the cleanup and relief effort in Western North Carolina.
Jon Small told Shawn of the desperate need for buckets in the areas that were destroyed. “Shawn didn’t hesitate, and he said ‘let’s get as many as we can.’” Jon proudly recounts. People needed the pails to gather waterlogged belongings. Cleanup crews needed buckets to move debris. The workers delivering aid needed the buckets to help get supplies organized and delivered to the people who needed it most.
Shawn stopped production of all chemical feeders at PurAqua to washout, dry, and stack around 400 Accu-Tab® pails for the relief effort. The pails were then packed into a van, from floor to ceiling, and sent to an airport in the Black Mountain staging area. The buckets were then loaded with supplies like toothpaste, toothbrushes, and deodorant. More buckets were filled with cleaning supplies that included disinfecting wipes, hand sanitizer, and bleaching powder. Using the buckets ensured that each supply kit could be weighed precisely for shipment on the planes and helicopters that were delivering the much-needed supplies. Jon explains that, “every one of [the buckets] is now in the hands of somebody that’s using it for something good.”
Jon Small personally drove to the affected areas a dozen times. In all, he racked up 1600 miles in his effort to help people in need. One community he visited was completely wiped out. Jon was told by a worker there, “where you’re standing right now, water was 8 feet over your head.” The devastation was unfathomable. “The topography of western North Carolina has been changed”, Jon further explains. Areas where rivers were 100 yards off the road are now 3 feet from the road. People’s towns, houses, and livelihoods were destroyed within hours.
Looking back on the mentally and physically exhausting days he spent helping out, Jon says he wouldn’t have been able to do anything without the PTO that Shawn gave them. “The good thing is that I work for a company who cares about people. They care about their employees and they care about what their employees care about.”, Jon chuckles. He recognizes that Shawn understood the severity of the situation and how much it meant to the employees of PurAqua and AMP.
Shawn helped his company donate time, money, and supplies. To further help PurAqua’s and AMP’s supportive work, Shawn sent out an email to all of AMP’s Accu-Tab® customers stating that they would donate $5 for every empty Accu-Tab® bucket that is donated to the relief effort. The money collected will go to a charity called Samaritan’s Purse that is responding to the devastation from Helene with emergency food, water, and aid.
Another employee of PurAqua (who prefers to be unnamed) traveled with the truck that contained all of the buckets and stayed to help. After a long day of supporting the cleanup effort, this employee said, “I feel like a proud American today.” And he sure did.
PurAqua and AMP employees and management are real heroes. Shawn and Jon mobilized an effort that helped hundreds of people get back on their feet after the most devastating hurricane to ever hit the mountains of North Carolina. Westlake Water Solutions team salutes everyone at PurAqua and AMP that took time to help.
