GALAX -- Alma Bryan has worked in factories on and off since her senior year of high school.

The relatively high wages, regular hours and good benefits helped the 45-year-old divorcee raise her two teenage daughters and kept her in a community she loves.

But on one recent morning, Bryan said she doesn't ever want to work in a factory again.

"Right now it's scary to work in a factory because I think soon all of these factories will be gone," she said as she sat in the waiting area of the Virginia Employment Commission office.

"I don't want to go to work in one and maybe work two or three years and have to leave."

It's an understandable concern.

Already this year, two major employers have shuttered Galax plants and a third has announced it will shut down a majority of its operations in coming months.

The decisions have left Bryan and 840 others facing current or imminent unemployment.

And they've sent city, regional and state leaders scrambling to provide adequate unemployment and social services.

"People just don't know what's going to happen," said Galax Mayor C.M. Mitchell of his 6,700 constituents. "They're worried about their future and, once the benefits are no longer available, what's going to happen to them."

Such anxiety has kept the phones busy at the Galax City Department of Social Services, the lines long at local food pantries and the parking lot full at the Galax VEC office.

In this small mountain city, the nervousness has pervaded everything from prayer chains to city council meetings.

This is Galax, after all, a city whose economy has forever depended on the furniture and textile industries to employ its residents, and where teens often grow up to work alongside their parents on an assembly line.

Even in 2005, after the city had already suffered several plant closures, manufacturing employed 34 percent of the work force.

In the nearby counties of Carroll and Grayson, the industry employed 21 percent and 24 percent of the populations, respectively. Grayson County Administrator William Ring called the most recent loss of jobs in Galax and the Twin Counties "discouraging to say the least."

Several community leaders have gone even further, saying layoffs at Webb Furniture Enterprises, Vaughan Furniture and Sara Lee Branded Apparel have brought the region to its lowest point.

Services stretched

Galax Social Services Director Susan Clark said she is dealing with the largest food stamp population she's ever seen.

In February, 718 households in the city were receiving food stamps.

That was up from 555 in February 2002 and 487 in February 1998.

Clark said some of the increase could be credited to a policy change that made more people eligible. The rest is likely the result of layoffs or reduced work hours.

Ted Bartlett, president of Willing Partners Inc., has also seen an increase in demand.

Willing Partners runs a food pantry that once a month distributes food boxes to qualifying individuals.

"We grew from 550 [boxes a month] to 1,250 over the last two years," Bartlett said in late March. "We'll probably exceed 1,300 this month."

In addition, Bartlett and food pantry coordinator Sandra Lundy say more and more of that demand is coming from young people.

When Willing Partners opened a little more than three years ago, 15 percent to 20 percent of those served were young.

Now, Lundy said, it's more than half.

"A lot of them, it's because of the recent layoffs," Bartlett added.

Like Clark and Bartlett, Bill Webb, program operator and manager of the Galax VEC office, said he's seen hundreds more people in the last six months than he did in the same period of 2005.

And, Webb, said "we haven't yet seen the bulk of laid-off workers. I expect the numbers to get significantly higher at the end of April."

Clark and Bartlett said they too are preparing for heightened demand in coming months.

To help with the expected strain on local services, Gov. Tim Kaine traveled to Galax in March to announce the creation of an economic relief center.

The center, expected to be operational by the end of next week, will direct displaced workers to a range of services from government and nonprofit agencies, including job search and child care assistance, health insurance and work force training programs.

Similar centers established in Martinsville, Marion, Clarksville and South Boston have served more than 85,000 workers since 2002 -- workers like Emma Walbroehl.

An uncertain future

Walbroehl has worked in Galax's Sara Lee fabric plant for a total of 21 years, long enough for friends to become like family and for her son to join her in the facility's knitting department.

On a Wednesday afternoon in March, the 40-year-old sat in the city's VEC office.

She had yet to be laid off from Sara Lee but was talking to Trade Act Representative Linda Nuckolls in preparation for what Walbroehl called a "crossroads."

In March, Sara Lee announced it will shut down fabric production in Galax, eliminating 332 jobs and shifting operations to other Sara Lee plants, some of which might be overseas.

It's a decision Walbroehl knew was coming.

"We were all expecting it for some time, but it's kind of like someone dying," the Galax resident said. "You expect it, but you're never really prepared."

Like Walbroehl, few in Galax and the Twin Counties believed they'd be immune to what some call the "58 virus."

The nickname is a reference to the series of furniture and textile plant closings that other communities along U.S. 58 have suffered, most notably the city of Martinsville.

"It was not a huge shock that some of the things that happened, happened," said Carroll County Administrator Gary Larrowe. "It was sort of, 'When is this going to happen?' "

Indeed, what happened in Martinsville has served as both warning and recovery model for leaders in Galax and Carroll and Grayson counties.

Martinsville as model

From 1996 to 2004, Martinsville and Henry County lost five major operations, its textile industry and a collective 10,000 jobs.

"The Virginia Employment Commission and social services were just being overwhelmed and it was becoming apparent we needed some extraordinary way of delivering assistance to a very extraordinary situation," said Tom Harned, vice president of the Martinsville-Henry County Economic Development Corporation.

A coordinated relief center was established and regional officials began trying to attract new, more diverse industry.

"We'd rather have 10 companies with 100 jobs each than one company with 2,000 jobs," Harned said.

A similar sentiment has been expressed for Galax and the Twin Counties.

"I think diversification's the way we're going to survive," said Ron Passmore, president of the Twin County Regional Chamber of Commerce and the Galax Smokehouse.

"We've had all our eggs in one basket for our first 100 years."

The transition from traditional, labor-intensive manufacturing, however, takes time.

Four years after Martinsville's economic relief center opened, Harned said his region has been just moderately successful in rebounding.

The unemployment rate in Martinsville is no longer the highest in the state, but in January it hit 8.1 percent.

And rather than growing, the population of Martinsville and Henry County has dropped a little, Harned said. And it is an older population than before the factories closed.

The VEC's Webb, who has been tapped to lead the economic relief center in Galax, said he is doing everything he can to keep people from leaving.

But he admitted it would be tough.

Seeking comparable work

Area companies like Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co., Magnolia Manufacturing and Consolidated Glass & Mirror are hiring, but not enough to employ everyone laid off and not always under the conditions they're used to.

"Most of the Webb and Vaughan workers are used to eight-hour day shifts," Webb said. "For a senior citizen who has worked at a plant for 30 years, working 12-hour shifts at Magnolia is tough, and some of these jobs are service jobs -- McDonald's and Hardee's -- where the pay is not comparable."

Scanning an office job board thumb-tacked with listings, Bryan said she could automatically reject pretty much all of the positions available.

Jobs far from home?

Nope, gas prices were too high.

Twelve-hour shifts?

Nah, she has daughters to raise.

Restaurant work?

At $5.75 an hour, the wages wouldn't come close to paying Bryan's bills.

In frustration, the former Webb worker turned from the board.

"When they list the good jobs, they don't last no time," she said.

Without any job leads, Bryan said she was considering going back to school, perhaps to get the training she needs to work in child care.

Developing new economy

Former Webb and Vaughan employees have been approved for assistance under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program.

The program provides things such as job retraining, additional unemployment insurance and health care benefits to workers who have lost their jobs because of foreign imports or plant relocations overseas.

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., has said he is working to see that former Sara Lee Branded Apparel workers get similar assistance.

When asked about the future of the region's economy, officials point to work-force retraining as an important component to relieving Galax and the Twin Counties of their dependence on the furniture and textiles industries.

"The American economy has re-engineered itself over the past several years and we need to be able to partake in that as well," Mayor Mitchell said. "I think our work force will be retrained more into the information age than we are now."

In the short term, that may mean high-tech and specialized manufacturing, but in the next five to 10 years, the area could be home to more new-economy industries.

Tom Elliott, executive director of the Carroll-Grayson-Galax Economic Development Authority, said as residents continue to upgrade their skills, he could see Galax attracting companies in research and development and customer service.

Walbroehl sure hopes that's the case.

She's told her son to think of the layoff as a second chance at higher education, an opportunity to become more computer savvy.

And she just might take accounting or bookkeeping classes herself.

But even at her most hopeful, Walbroehl said there's always that twinge of fear.

"Even when we complete school, the jobs might not be here," she said. "A big concern is what if I go back to school just to flip burgers?"