People Staying at Budgetel Need Help

East Ridge city officials said that 80 rooms at the Budgetel Inn on Mack Smith Road were occupied on Sunday by people fleeing Hurricane Irma.

The people who are staying there may need help with some basic food stuffs for themselves and their pets.

John Patel, whose company is renovating the 286 room motel, is allowing anyone from Florida who has fled the path of Hurricane Irma to stay in the motel at no charge.

According to Vicky Clark Profitt Walden, on Sunday, she and her granddaughter took several cases of water to the facility to help. Walden asked the people at the Budgetel what else may be needed and she compiled a list.

Here’s Walden’s list of what’s urgently needed: Water, snacks, toilet paper, paper plates, bowls and plastic spoons, non-perishable food and pet food. Walden said that there were only six cases of water in the building Monday.

According to Walden, an area church is providing lunch for those sheltering in the building on Monday.

Walden said she would be volunteering on Monday. If you can help, drop what you can off at the motel.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.