The Salvation Army also distributes clean-up kits, containing brooms, mops, buckets and cleaning supplies. Other resources provided include drinking water, shower units, and first aid supplies. Food and supplies were placed in areas on Sunday afternoon, where they were kept at a safe distance from coastal and inland storm-surge regions yet close enough to be moved immediately after the storm to meet the needs of victims and first-responders.
Operation Blessing (OBI), an international relief and development organization based in Virginia Beach, Va., is prepared to respond as disaster-related needs emerge. Six of OBI's tractor trailer trucks are already dispatched and picking up food, cleaning kits and relief supplies.
OBI is gearing up to provide up to 310,000 meals a day by the end of the week in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with partners at the Salvation Army and the Southern Baptist relief team.
Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist disaster unit also is preparing for a 300,000-meal response; 29 units have been activated at the request of the American Red Cross. Baptist churches and association buildings across the region were being opened as shelters for those fleeing the storm, reports Baptist Press.
Dennis Jacobs, the Minister of Students and Activities at the First Baptist Church in New Orleans for 11 years, helped open a Red Cross shelter at the church for Hurricane Ivan last September. According to a Red Cross news release, Jacobs relied on lessons learned from that experience as he worked to get the shelter ready for its 1 p.m. opening Sunday.
"About 25 percent of the people in the shelter speak Spanish," explains Jacobs. "We do all the signs in the shelter in English and Spanish to take care of the Hispanic population. I just went to the computer and printed all the signs we had saved from opening the shelter during Hurricane Ivan."
