For only one person, a few cubes of ice will do. To keep water and sodas cold for 2,000 Jimmy Carter Work Project volunteers, you’d better load up the truck.
Better yet, you’d better have several tractor-trailers for the area’s equivalent of white gold this week.
Building houses is hot work, even with Wednesday’s early afternoon drenching.
“Based on the first two days, two tractor-trailers of eight-pound bags will be needed,” said Paul Trammell, general manager of Ready Ice Co., which donated the ice for the Jimmy Carter Work Project. “One-third of a trailer of 20-pound bags will be delivered to the food area.”
The ice is stored in trailers and store coolers. Once it is at Wellborn Manor, responsibility transfers to David Zeigler and his crew. Zeigler, president of Anniston’s Habitat Board of Directors, is this week’s Iceman.
Four teams working four routes keep the coolers full at 19 stations.
There are 15 cases of water and 20 bags of ice per station, said Samar Johnson, a volunteer from Anniston. “Because it is so hot and the ice is melting, we have to refill the coolers every 30 minutes.”
Rapid melting and hands grabbing drinks from coolers mean precautions must be taken to ensure the volunteers’ health, Zeigler said.
Holes in the coolers’ bottoms allow water to drain. This, along with wiping down with a little Clorox, contains any bacteria.
“When I was in South Africa last year, people got sick because the ice and water remained in the coolers,” he said.
Canned-water consumption has gone through the roof, because of roof work, and the supplies are running low. Tuesday was roof day, and that meant a lot of water and ice on the fire of rooftops.
“Habitat International shipped us 1,800 cases of water at the beginning of the week,” Zeigler said. “We have gone through two pallets in two days and are now down to our last one.”
