EAGLES WINGS FOUNDATION NEWS

Lewis helps lead Gulfport rescues
By By Stephanie Murphy, Daily News Business and Real Estate Writer
Thursday, September 08, 2005

Scott Lewis, right, a Palm Beach businessman now helping to coordinate emergency relief efforts in Gulfport, Miss., speaks with National Guard representatives, including Brig. Gen. Lonnie Culver of Indiana, while local volunteer Linn Perry, at left, looks on.

Many Palm Beachers know Scott Lewis as the businessman whose crews keep their landscape shipshape. Last weekend, his turf shifted to Katrina-ravaged Gulfport, Miss., where he sleeps on the floor and coordinates volunteers for the Harrison County Emergency Operations Center.

Lewis told the National Guard that he had the use of a 35-acre high school campus and asked the Guard to work with him. Within two hours, a general agreed "it was a perfect location," Lewis said. "They mobilized one of their reinforcement battalions, 850 National Guarders out of Georgia, to this site." Those troops arrived Tuesday and were joined by hundreds from the Tennessee Air National Guard.

"There are 1,400 troops here. It's so crazy. I got guys saluting me, and I'm standing here in my big old gardening hat," said Lewis, who owns Scott Lewis Gardening & Trimming.

"Scott is my go-to guy to find out the needs of these families — food, water and general aid. We're running pathfinder missions, and Scott is coordinating so local people who live here go out with us on the back roads which were maybe overlooked or neglected in the beginning," said Lt. Col. Steve Blanton of the Georgia Army National Guard, a task force commander working with Lewis in Gulfport.

Lewis has 25 years experience in emergency management and 20 years as a volunteer firefighter. He trained at the National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg, Md., where he studied Incident Command Systems, a U.S. Forestry Service strategy to fight huge fires.

When Hurricane Floyd raked the Bahamas six years ago, Lewis headed a volunteer effort and set up a command post to direct relief efforts throughout the Abaco islands. He also founded the nonprofit Eagles' Wings Foundation Inc., which assisted in a similar capacity in southwestern Florida following hurricanes Charley and Ivan.

This time around, Lewis got involved with some help from Carolyn Andrews of Palm Beach, a longtime customer and friend who put Lewis in touch with her daughter, Ginger Hyde of Mobile, Ala. Lewis and an employee, Pedro Lezama, drove to the region Friday "to see if we could help." They spent a night at Hyde's house, after running into gasoline shortages and long lines as far east as Tallahassee.

They made it to Biloxi, Miss. "It was absolutely wiped out. If you flattened two rows of Palm Beach mansions, that's what it would look like," Lewis said. "I had the four-wheel-drive on because the ocean highway washed away."

In Biloxi, the focus was on stringing concertina or barbed wire along a 25-mile section of the coastline, Lewis said. "They were walling it off to everyone, especially gawkers, and they're worried about what is in the debris piles," he said. "No doubt more bodies, and everyone is very sensitive to that."

Lewis called Steve Jerauld, a deputy chief with Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue who also is working in Mississippi and who knows Lewis' background.

 "He said, 'Come to Gulfport,' introduced me and within 10 minutes I was appointed volunteer coordinator" for the Harrison County Emergency Operations Center, Lewis said. The school superintendent offered the high school campus as a staging area for nonprofit relief efforts.

On Tuesday, 20 missions to outlying areas exposed "incredible needs," Lewis said. "An hour ago, we found a lady with gangrene. Half an hour ago, we found a guy who was running out of [medical] oxygen."

When his Eagles' Wings credit card was maxed out, he received donations from home, including the law firm Searcy Denney Scarola. The Palm Beach County United Way called him, and U.S. Rep. Mark Foley's office assisted with "cutting red tape," Lewis said.

"Nothing has come up that can't be solved," Lewis said. "We're buried and overwhelmed, but we're solving them. I ask, 'Can you fix this problem right now?' and boom, a salute, and they take off."

Lewis held a press conference Wednesday to talk about some statements he made Sunday about gas prices and shortages. "Someone mentioned $3 a gallon, and I said into a microphone, 'Be happy you have a car and a house to drive it to.' The petroleum industry needs to take a profit holiday and pay some truckers to run some gas down to these people."

A representative of the Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association went to Gulfport to meet with Lewis.

"They got half a million gallons of gasoline committed to run here, through Illinois, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri," Lewis said. Foley's staff arranged with governors to waive taxes, fees and weight limits for trucks.

Not content with that victory, Lewis also suggested that "the oil companies donate the $1.5 million in gas.

Today's focus will be on attracting more volunteers to help distribute the supplies pouring into the compound.

"They desperately need volunteers, as many as they can get," said Lewis' wife, Carol. "Don't call. Just come." The location is Harrison County Central High School, 15600 School Road, Gulfport, Miss. Interested volunteers also can call (228) 832-6653.

Lezama accompanied Lewis last week because he volunteered and he's good with communications gear and electronics, Lewis said, adding that "a dozen of my guys wanted to come," but they stayed behind to handle the business.

Palm Beach Town Manager Peter Elwell said, "After Frances and Jeanne, Scott and his crews provided invaluable service to the town, doing literally anything that needed to be done related to debris removal and the restoration of our green spaces. Throughout the recovery effort, depending on our needs at any particular time, Scott was both a willing soldier and an effective leader."

In the Bahamas in 1999, "Scott turned chaos into order," according to Jack Albury, owner of a trucking firm in Marsh Harbour.

Lewis originally allocated a week to Katrina assistance, but has bumped up that estimate to two, he said.

Hyde said she expects to see him and Lezama on the return trip, "for a hot meal and a shower."