Eastern Hills Mall serves as a hub of communication during storm crisis
by KIMBERLY M. KARCHER Clarence Editor

Centrally located on Transit Road between Clarence and Amherst, two of the recent storm's hardest hit areas, Eastern Hills Mall served as a hub of communications for both emergency crews and hundreds of community residents.

Throughout the state of emergency, the mall's parking lot served as a staging area for hundreds of power company trucks, a place for National Grid to set up its headquarters and a catering station for numerous linemen who were working day and night to restore power to the hundreds of thousands left in the dark.

Inside the mall, residents gathered in the International Food Court to escape from the cold, get a hot meal, catch up on important news from the numerous television sets and surf the Internet on their laptops through the free wireless Internet connection offered by the mall.

"Six months ago we signed a contract with National Grid to be their staging center in the event of a local emergency," explained Ellen Kaminsky, marketing manager for the mall. "It is strictly a community service on the mall's part, and the power company was looking to be proactive. And it proved to be a positive thing after the past week."

Kaminsky said there were between 400 to 500 trucks in the lot, not to mention the large recreational

vehicles and mobile command centers set up by National Grid.

West Herr and Saturn of Clarence, which is renting the former Colton RV space inside the mall, allowed use of its space, which is currently vacant, as a sort of mess hall for the workers, many of whom were from out of state.

"There have been up to 4,000 workers here per day," Kaminsky said. "They were provided a hot breakfast and a boxed lunch. They were the most professional and appreciative people. It was truly a pleasure and honor that the mall could be utilized in such a fashion during this time." And many residents who were left without power flocked to the mall for a number of reasons.

"The mall was able to provide people with information through our televisions sets, food in the food court, warmth from our fire places and shopping for needed supplies like generators, flashlights and batteries at many of our stores. And, it was even a place where families who had no power could get away from it all for a couple of hours," Kaminsky said. "It is a priority of the mall and of Mountain Development Group (the company which owns the mall) to consistently meet the needs of our communities, and during this event we did just that on so many scales. It's been wonderful to be a part of that."