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By Steve Mocarsky smocarsky@timesleader.com
Staff Writer
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Dianne Gregg brought her 94-year-old mother with her to the Dallas Fire Co. on Tuesday to pick up some bottled water and fresh fruit.

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Ruth Johnson, left, and her daughter Dianne Gregg, both of Harveys Lake, talk about not having electricity as they visit the Dallas Borough Fire Station on E. Center Hill Road to pick up food on Tuesday afternoon. BILL TARUTIS/FOR THE TIMES LEADER

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Daisy Neiman of Centermoreland, center, samples a cherry with her children, Destiny Rotski, 4, right, Xavier Arzola, 3, and Gavin Arzola, 2, at the firehouse.

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At Misericordia University in the Anderson Sports and Health Center, shower and locker room facilities are open 7 to 9 a.m. and 7 to 9 p.m.

Gregg, 66, was afraid to leave her mother, Ruth Johnson, alone at her Harveys Lake home.

“We have her hooked up to (a medical alert service), that’s dead. The battery backup is dead. … We just have nothing. But now we have fruit,” Gregg said with a hopeful smile, holding up a bag of peaches and nectarines she was given at a supply distribution point the American Red Cross set up at the fire station.

Gregg and her mother are among the tens of thousands of people in Luzerne County and millions along the East Coast who lost electric power when Hurricane Irene hit over the weekend.

Those, like Gregg and Johnson, who aren’t hooked up to public water supplies and use wells are without water, too, because electric pumps deliver the water from the wells to their homes.

“Needless to say, we can’t flush our toilets,” Gregg said.

Gregg hasn’t been able to go to work at the law firm at which she’s employed because she fears for her mother’s safety.

“I can’t leave her alone. We have trees (fallen) all over our house and it’s so cold in there. She doesn’t have (medical alert service), we have no phone, I can’t leave her,” Gregg said.

Asked if she was given an estimate by UGI Electric Utilities as to when power would be restored, Gregg laughed.

“Which day? This morning at 9 o’clock, they said it would be on in a half hour. They day before that, they said it’ll be on tonight,” Gregg said.

What do the women do in the evenings?

“Nothing,” Gregg said. “We wait until it gets dark where we can’t see anymore and then we go to bed. I have never had so much sleep in my life. We put extra blankets on the bed because it does get cold at night. Usually, my mom and I would watch programs on TV until about 9:30. No more; 7:30, time to go to bed.”

The hardest part for Gregg has been seeing her mom deal with it.

“We had nothing in the morning for her to take her medication. … If I was by myself, I’d survive, I’d just go somewhere else. She’s 94, she doesn’t want to go anywhere else. That’s her home,” Gregg said.

Johnson summed up the ordeal in a word: terrible.

“No water, no electricity. It’s a new experience before I die. But we still have a lot to be thankful for,” Johnson said.

Gregg tried to remain positive as well. “I just told that other lady, a month from now, we’ll look back at this and smile, God willing.”

The women are thankful for their neighbor Bill Short. “He’s been very kind to us. He has a generator and he came up and gave us three hours worth of power for our freezer because we would lose everything in it,” Gregg said.

They’re also grateful to the Red Cross and Back Mountain officials. “We came down here because we didn’t get any food (at Harveys Lake) and they suggested we come down here. We’re not residents of Dallas, but they said we were more than welcome to it,” Gregg said.

The Back Mountain area is composed of the townships of Dallas, Jackson, Kingston, Lake and Lehman and the borough of Dallas.

“Harveys Lake borough, they were also pretty hard hit, so they’re included with us. Right now, they may not have the resources … to help us, but we’re there to help them,” said Jackson Township Supervisor Chairman John Jay Wilkes, who is also deputy chief of the Back Mountain Regional Emergency Management Agency.

Kingston Township Manager Kathy Sebastian said she contacted the Red Cross on Sunday afternoon, informing officials the township had numerous areas without power and asking if provisions were available or shelters were open.

Local Red Cross Emergency Services Director Brian Wrightson called her Monday morning to tell her volunteers would arrive soon with supplies, Sebastian said.

Edna Vivian, a local Red Cross board member, said more than 100 people came to the fire station Tuesday for supplies. On Monday, she estimated several hundred.

“We’re working with the Red Cross so closely right now,” Wilkes said. “That’s why we’ve got this open right here, because it’s more of a central location for the Back Mountain.

Wilkes said Back Mountain Regional EMA is composed of Dallas borough and the townships of Jackson, Lehman and Lake – “four municipalities working as one. … But we’re reaching out as far as we can reach. There are no boundaries and we’re here to help wherever we can.”

Back Mountain schools are helping too.

At Lake-Lehman High School from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. today, shower facilities, water, and electricity for charging computers and cell phones will be available. Residents should bring containers and items for showering. At Misericordia University in the Anderson Sports and Health Center, shower and locker room facilities are open to the public from 7 to 9 a.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Dallas Middle School will be open 6:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. for those who need to use the showers and other facilities. Residents should call the school office at 674-7243 so staff can plan for them.

State Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, said she was at the fire station and other Back Mountain areas to see her constituents and “the areas where people are still experiencing power outages so I could advocate on their behalf to the power companies.” She said it was heartening to see what was happening.

“I witnessed them reaching out in so many ways to make sure their neighbors are taken care of. I just want to express my thanks and appreciation,” she said.

Wilkes headed over to the Jackson Township Municipal Building, where a 400-gallon water buffalo was filled for anyone who needed it.

A group of township workers sat at a table in the garage waiting for a caravan of trucks from other municipalities to arrive and form a fleet for transporting Red Cross supplies to Dallas. But Wilkes worries Back Mountain residents might not know that help is available.

“We have no phone here at the township building. We have no cable TV. … There’s the paper right on the table. The Times Leader’s the only resource we’ve had for what’s going on around us because we’re kind of isolated,” Wilkes said. “When we have 75 percent of our township out of power, it’s difficult for us to communicate with residents.”

Wilkes soon greeted his neighbor, 66-year-old Ted Naugle, who pulled up in his pickup for some bottles of water. Naugle compared his experience with Irene to serving in the military.

“It’s not nice. It’s getting rough right now. I’m getting some water to pour in the tub or hopefully find someplace to take a shower. I know Weis Market was giving away free ice, but they ran out of it long ago,” Naugle said.

“I’ve got candles,” he said, “just like they did living in the 1800s. … How the hell did they do it? I’m old enough to remember my grandmother having an outhouse. I can’t imagine what that’s like.”

But, after a pause, he, like Gregg and Johnson, expressed gratitude.

“As bad as I have it, there are other people back where I live, their houses have trees on them. So you really can’t complain. You go other places and see worse. There’s always somebody worse off,” Naugle said.

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