John Matthews
WMAL.com
ELLICOTT CITY, MD — (WMAL) Repairs and cleanup from last week’s devastating flood in Ellicott City are well underway, but it will be weeks or months before some of the Main Street businesses are back up and running, leaving many workers out of jobs.
Local businesses are stepping up to offer work to the newly unemployed, and Howard County officials have scheduled a job fair Monday to match up employers with workers whose jobs were swept away in the floods.
“We have several different opportunities coming from several different kinds of industries,” says Francine Trout with the Howard County Office of Workplace Development. “Everything from customer service to health care, retail, to IT and construction,” she added.
“We’ve had a great outpouring of support, actually, from the business community,” says Trout. “A number of folks have been contacting us, interested in hiring individuals.”
In addition to applying for jobs, the county is offering help with resumes, and to counsel applicants on the types of jobs available.
The jobs fair comes as serious cleanup gets underway along Main Street. Business and property owners, along with hundreds of volunteers spent all day Sunday working to remove debris left by the flooding, and Howard County officials announced more clean up hours will be extended Monday. The Main Street area will be closed the rest of the week as an extensive evaluation of the street’s infrastructure is made.
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