Hurricane Charley, which swept through central and eastern Florida on August 13, left billions of dollars worth of destruction in its wake and many thousands of people homeless. Among those was a woman well known to many in the Los Angeles adult video community, Shawn Wall, the accounting manager and DVD buyer for Jackson Supply, a distributor in the Orlando area.
Bob Mosca, Jackson Supply’s owner, told AVN.com that the storm, zooming across the state a 140 m.p.h., passed right over Wall’s condo unit in South Orlando, ripping off a 90x25-foot section of the roof and wrapping it around the building next door. Most of the unit’s contents were obliterated when the ceiling caved in under torrential rain.
The next day the building was condemned by the city of Orlando and the occupants forced out. Wall moved in with Mosca, who said, “She’s fine, her dog is fine, no injuries. We were able to salvage some of her belongings.”
The incident was brought to the attention of AVN.com by Jon Islas, Sales manager of Standard Digital, who has known Wall since 1998.
“The adult industry is a tight community,” he told AVN.com, “and we should be able to help one of our own. I saw on the news people giving money to some disaster relief fund for people they don’t even know. And here we have someone we know, someone we talk to, someone we count on to get us those ever important New Release orders on time—a friend who needs a little help.”
He said that owners and sales reps at several other companies have been quick to rally to her aid.
Jackson Supply is a general distributor, most of whose business is adult. “We’re a wholesale video distributor,” Mosca said, “we’re not connected with any retail stores. We’ve been in the video business since 1983. We were around when Vivid first started and when AVC was still around. We’ve been around so long we know everybody out in L. A.”
Hurricane Charley, according to Mosca, was if anything even more devastating than has been reported.
“People in the area went from five to seven days with no power, no air-conditioning,” he said. “Cell phone towers got knocked out, so even that communication was poor. The wind was strong enough to take the roofs off quite a few homes.
“Gas stations couldn’t pump gas, so people couldn’t drive. Food went bad, there was no ice, no power. It was real miserable, especially for the older people and the really young people. It’s going to take a long time to clean up down here, especially with the amount of trees down.”
Jackson Supply itself, he said, did not incur any major damage, but some of its video store customers did and are still closed.
“Shawn’s doing good,” he said, “trying to handle this as best as possible. She happens to be the president of her condo association, and 16 people out of that are also homeless. People are trying to re-roof the building and dry out the interior.
“The emotional aspect is pretty hard. The other 15 families, Shawn has been doing whatever she can for those guys too. And trying to get the buildings put back together. And continuing working here.
“Believe me, she’ll appreciate anything, even if it’s just a ‘Hey, how’re you doing?’”
Communications can be sent to Shawn Wall at Jackson Supply, 784 Harold Ave., #102, Winterpark, FL 32789. (407) 628-2014.
Anyone who wishes to make material donations may leave them at the AVN warehouse, where they will be retrieved by Islas and forwarded to Wall. Please label “Hurricane Relief.”
