A volunteer with the Calloway County Chapter of the American Red Cross left Murray Friday on a deployment to assist in efforts to restore drinking water to residents in West Virginia in the wake of a chemical spill.

Calloway County Chapter Director Matt Hamblen confirmed that LeRoy Harris, who lives in Buchanan, Tenn., left Murray with the Calloway chapters emergency response vehicle Friday morning en route to West Virginia.

He does live in Tennessee but hes been with us the last two years so we think hell do his job well, Hamblen said. The main thing were looking at for him is helping out with bulk distribution of water for the people up there, so he is taking our ERV, and we should hear from him (Friday night) and, from there, it will just be a matter of where hes asked to go and help it any way he can.

Hamblen said he was notified that a volunteer from the Calloway chapter was being sought for deployment Thursday evening.

The Associated Press said schools and restaurants closed, grocery stores sold out of bottled water and state legislators who had just started their session canceled the day's business after a chemical spill in the Elk River in Charleston, W.Va., shut down much of the city and surrounding counties even as the extent of the danger remained unclear.

AP said the federal government joined the state early Friday in declaring a disaster, and the West Virginia National Guard planned to distribute bottled drinking water to emergency services agencies in the nine affected counties. In requesting the federal declaration, which makes federal resources available to the state, state officials said about 300,000 people were affected.

AP added that federal authorities are also launching an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the spill and what caused it, U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin said in a news release Friday. The spill happened Thursday, causing Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to order customers of West Virginia American Water to not drink, bathe, cook or wash clothes with tap water.

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Red Cross volunteer heads to West Virginia