The temperature continued dropping inside the Bangor home of 101-year-old Ethelyn Travis and 82-year-old Caroline Tully in the days after they lost power during Monday’s wind storm.
It had fallen to 54 degrees by the time they were able to leave their home Wednesday to stay a couple of days in a hotel — funded entirely by community members.
Travis’ caretaker, Emma Fitzgerald, 18, was talking with her mom, worrying about the temperature, when her mom said she would ask for help on a Facebook page for Penobscot County residents. Within 30 minutes, Fitzgerald’s phone was blowing up with people offering to help.
“It’s amazing how quick this community came together,” Fitzgerald said. “We don’t know them. They don’t know us.”
One person anonymously booked a night for Travis and Tully at the Hollywood Casino Hotel and another person booked them a second night, with a $50 meal credit. Someone else is bringing them a homemade meal.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” Tully said. “I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the night.”
Tully has rheumatoid arthritis, which makes spending time in the cold even more painful. She and her mother had been wearing layers and curling up under blankets, but she was still cold and in pain.
Neither Tully nor Travis knew Fitzgerald was working to get them out of their powerless home. She came in Wednesday morning and gave them the good news.
“[Fitzgerald] got me ready, packed my bags,” Travis said.
A hot shower was one of the first things Tully wanted when they got to the hotel. Travis was able to have her first shower in four days.
The mother and daughter lost all the food in their fridge with the power outage, but there’s been enough money donated to help replace the items. A family friend helped to make sure the pipes in their home wouldn’t freeze.
People are still reaching out to Fitzgerald, offering to help.
Multiple friends and members of All Souls Congregation have checked in on them since Monday’s storm hit, bringing them ways to charge their devices and making sure they were staying as warm as possible.
“I feel like an angel,” Travis said.
Travis and Tully are both grateful to everyone who has helped them, especially for Fitzgerald who is a “beautiful caregiver,” Tully said.
“I hope this inspires a lot of people to help others,” Tully said.
The Bangor-area community has come together in other ways to help people since the storm knocked out power to more than 400,000 people across the state. About 219,000 people were still without power as of Wednesday evening.
Businesses that have donated food to people include Mad Kat and Company in Brewer, which cooked up as much food as possible, giving away pizzas and other meals to community members for free.
Jason’s New York Style Pizza gave out free 12-inch pizzas to first responders and line workers, Tuesday. Downtown Charcuterie, in Brewer, gave out a free mini box to every lineman on Wednesday as a way to say thank you to everyone working hard, according to a Facebook post.
