Stranded Chesterfield County trucker works to get home after company closes

What he found instead was a notice from his dispatcher telling him and nearly 1,400 other Arrow Trucking Co. drivers to drive their trucks to the nearest Freightliner dealership and drop them off.

The company, which had filed for bankruptcy in April, shut down operations and left the drivers stranded all over the country just days before Christmas.

"I was sitting there in the truck in shock." Harris said by phone from Wyoming where he and his wife Sherrina are stranded. "I called the dispatcher and asked if this was a joke."

In Florence Christmas night Charles Cooper on a stop between deliveries said he first heard of the closure while in Texas earlier this week. "When I first heard it I was in Dallas and I heard a guy talking on the CB. Sometimes when you hear stuff on the CB you don't half believe what they're saying because a lot of time they'll add stuff to it." Cooper said. "I felt sorry [for those drivers] because I know that I'm struggling, I have been for two years because of the economy."

Harris had filled the gas tanks of his truck the night before in anticipation of the next day's load. After receiving the notice Tuesday he decided to drive the truck as far has he could to try and get home to the East Coast. "I know it was a little unethical, they told us to drop the trucks off, but I had the full tanks of gas so I figured, 'I'm going to get as close to home as I can." Harris said.

The corporate fuel cards drivers are issued have been frozen since Tuesday forcing many drivers, like Harris, to be stranded at truck stops all over the county.

"I live out of my truck, everything I own is in that truck." Harris, a native of Cheraw, said. "I sometimes stay out three months at a time."

Arrow Trucking Company, based in Tulsa, Oklahoma has shut down all ways of contacting the company. The website is shut down and a recording instructing driver on how to surrender their trucks is what plays when callers try and reach Arrow.

In an effort to help stranded drivers, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, or OOIDA, started a Facebook Page called " Support for Stranded Arrow Truck Drivers" as an effort to help link those stranded with gas money, rides home, or places to stay. By Friday morning the group had helped hundreds of drivers get home for the Christmas holiday.

The efforts to assist stranded drivers extend all across the country with fellow drivers such as Cooper offering to help. "It'd make me feel good to help another trucker if he's in need." said Cooper an owner operator driver. "I'm a Christian, I'd try and help anyone if I know they are in need." Cooper said.

Also in an effort to help stranded drivers Daimler Trucks, who owns Arrow's leased trucks, was offering bus tickets home or $200 cash to Arrow drivers who turned in their Freightliner trucks to a Freightliner dealer.

Mark Harris, like many drivers, keeps everything they own in their trucks.

For Harris that means all of his clothes, his wife's clothes, their TV, and all other personal belongs are in his truck. "Even if we could get home, and we have no money, I haven't been paid in three weeks, how would I get all my stuff home?"

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