Collin County Meals on Wheels taking extra care of seniors affected by storm damage
PLANO, Texas - With thousands of North Texans without power after Tuesday morning’s storms, the Collin County Meals on Wheels is taking extra care to make sure people who can't easily get to the centers are okay.
Deron Boyer with the non-profit is one of 1,900 people hitting the streets to check on the most vulnerable.
"With storm damage, 95% of our clients are 60, and above 97% live below the poverty level. They are already struggling," he said. "If they have an outage, they don't have a way to get a generator and run cords."
The city of Richardson says 26% of customers were still without power Wednesday afternoon 33 hours after the storm wreaked havoc, knocking down trees and pulling off roofs.
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In Plano, 10,000 customers were still without power. Among them is a senior living apartment complex.
The fire department let Meals on Wheels know they would need to deliver extra meals to people who lost all the food in their refrigerators.
Zella Tyson, CEO of Collin County Meals on Wheels, says in addition to delivering meals, volunteers will also be making sure seniors aren't getting too hot. It’s an important check since their phones may not work, leaving them unable to call anyone for help.
"So we are preparing right now to provide shelf staples, meals that don’t require refrigeration. And we can deliver at a moment’s notice, and we are very in tune to where the seniors are demographically," she said. "Meals on Wheels combat isolation. Isolation is such a key determinant of a senior’s health."
With Oncor estimating outages lasting into Friday and some even Saturday, Meals on Wheels is also requesting donations to be able to deliver ice, coolers, power banks for phones and flashlights.