AccuWeather spoke with Mercy Chefs Founder Gary LeBlanc on how they're helping those in Louisiana who have been impacted by Francine.
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00:00and we have an important interview coming up yeah disaster release organization mercy chefs
00:05is in homa louisiana in the wake of hurricane francine serving chef prepared meals to residents
00:12volunteers and first responders coping with the storm's aftermath founder gary levon a louisiana
00:19native it's a bit of a bittersweet trip the non-profit was started in the aftermath of
00:24hurricane katrina in 2006 and gary we welcome you to our morning show and talk about a feel
00:30good friday story we appreciate everything you're doing tell us about what you're seeing in homa and
00:35what mercy chefs is doing to help people as they recover from francine well on the top end we're
00:42really excited the damage wasn't worse down in homa and all through south louisiana we've seen
00:48much worse damage down there but at the same time a big part of population is still without power
00:55there were a lot of homes that were flooded a lot of the fishing and maritime industries they had a
01:00lot of boats that took water or sank and so folks are still struggling to get through we met some
01:06people that still have blue tarps on their homes from three years ago in hurricane ida and it just
01:12seems like they can't quite get back without another storm hitting the folks there in south
01:17louisiana that's a really important perspective that you share with us how does mercy chefs
01:22deploy to disasters and then how long will you plan to stay well mercy chefs has six mobile
01:28kitchens based around the country so we can get to a disaster very quickly so our teams were on
01:35site actually here two days ahead of time pre-stage we're buying groceries we're getting everything
01:41set we were finding locations and so as soon as the storm passed we were able to move right in
01:47and get meals out yesterday to the people there in alma and our model on how long we'll stay is
01:53we're going to stay as long as there is a need for us but we view ourselves as a sort of bridge
02:00from the storm back to normalcy so we'll watch for restaurants getting open power being back on
02:06grocery stores being at open and we'll take our cues from that on when we need to get out of town
02:13all right so you're a louisiana native and started mercy chefs after katrina 18 years ago
02:18what does it mean to be back where it all started and do you have any
02:23areas that you plan to deploy to next we um we we always love to be back in new orleans in south
02:32louisiana i mean it is home everybody talks like me there are a lot of last names like mine
02:38the food is amazing down here in south louisiana and and it does bring back so many memories to
02:45be back here in the city it's where i spent 20 years in the industry and so the places i used
02:50to work um just so many incredible memories but to see them constantly hit by storms is such a sad
02:58place in my heart in terms of where we're going to go next of course we're watching the east coast
03:03our headquarters is in portsmouth brazil and virginia so our team there is already taking
03:09precautions and preparations to be ready for what may come watching all the long-range forecast
03:16but daily mercy chefs is around the country in our community kitchens taking care of dallas and
03:22nashville richmond virginia we're also with our family grocery box programs and our global
03:28division serving over a hundred thousand meals a month around the world so we're we're constantly
03:35busy but constantly monitoring the disasters and the storms that that are always on the horizon it
03:41seems gary leblanc founder of mercy chefs thanks again so much for joining us on accurate early
03:47we hate to see these disasters but we do love to hear stories just like yours about how you're
03:51helping people well thank you guys so much the coverage keeps so many people safe we appreciate
03:58you thank you so much