{"id":4643,"date":"2020-11-10T18:54:16","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T18:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/?p=4643"},"modified":"2021-05-11T17:57:00","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T17:57:00","slug":"freeway-community-hero-brandon-tate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/our-stories\/freeway-community-hero-brandon-tate\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeway Community Hero: Brandon Tate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

First there was Hurricane Laura that devastated Southwest Louisiana like few storm events seen in recent years. The 10th strongest US hurricane by wind speed on record, it caused some $8.1 billion in damage in Southwest Louisiana alone \u2013 especially in the communities of Lake Charles, Moss Bluff and Sulphur. Then it was followed closely by Hurricane Sally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to life on the Louisiana Gulf Coast during hurricane season, as Brandon Tate, the area vice president USAgencies Insurance, a division of Freeway Insurance, knows all too well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe heard the stories of people in the area that were affected, whose homes were destroyed,\u201d he said. \u201cStories of faith and their ability to persevere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As often happens in the aftermath of major events like these, communities pull together. One place this enduring spirit has been on clear display has been in Lake Charles at USAgencies\u2019 office on Ryan Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Laura swept through, USAgencies\u2019 team removed the boards from their storefront and began supporting the community using generator power, even while four of the company\u2019s employees remain displaced due to storm damage: Sean Gray, Jennifer Jackson, Tilda Petre and Whitney Moore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe went to the power company and they said it would be weeks from having power, so we loaded up portable generators and portable air conditioners, gathered other volunteers from other communities, and started helping people,\u201d said Tate. \u201cWe went out on Monday, and started unboarding the buildings that were boarded up and started getting things back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a labor of love, as Tate is commuting three hours each way every day from Baton Rouge \u2013 and was even struck by a tractor trailer one day en route. Yet, he and his team continue to focus on supporting their neighbors including a significant number of low-income, non-English speaking members of the community. It has become, to a degree, a community meeting place for not only USAgencies\u2019 customers, but area residents needing support, comfort and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are open to customers and the community for anyone that wants to sit, have a cup of coffee, talk and recover,\u201d Tate noted. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a long road to get back to normal. One of our employee\u2019s homes is completely destroyed, the other three have also been granted extensions for their displacement stay with FEMA. But I made a decision to continue paying these employees to keep them afloat during this time. We take care of our family, and this situation has really brought the community together because it doesn\u2019t matter who, what you are, where you\u2019re from, we are together now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helping others, being engrained in local communities. This is Freeway, from the southwest corner of Louisiana to a corner near you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We thank our team \u2013 our community heroes \u2013 for making Freeway what it is today and will be into the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First there was Hurricane Laura that devastated Southwest Louisiana like few storm events seen in recent years. The 10th strongest US hurricane by wind speed on record, it caused some $8.1 billion in damage in Southwest Louisiana alone \u2013 especially in the communities of Lake Charles, Moss Bluff and Sulphur. Then it was followed closely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1977],"tags":[],"importance":[],"type-content":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4643"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5549,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4643\/revisions\/5549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"importance","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/importance?post=4643"},{"taxonomy":"type-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.freeway.com\/knowledge-center\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type-content?post=4643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}