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Relief Units Feed Thousands as Fires Continue Raging in CA
Erin Roach & Mickey Noah
Baptist Press
October 25, 2007
SAN DIEGO -- As more than 20 wildfires have burned at least 665 square miles in seven counties and forced nearly 1 million residents to flee their homes, Southern Baptist disaster relief workers are responding quickly by providing thousands of meals for firefighters and evacuees in Southern California.
Two feeding units from the California Southern Baptist Convention are set up at PETCO Park, home of the San Diego Padres. Don Hargis, disaster relief coordinator for California, said they're preparing 20,000 to 40,000 meals a day to be sent out to shelters in 75 Red Cross emergency relief vehicles.
A third kitchen unit is operating at First Baptist Church in Newhall, Calif., which is in northern Los Angeles County, according to Mickey Caison, director of the North American Mission Board's disaster operations center in Alpharetta, Ga. That kitchen is prepared to serve up to 700 meals a day, he said.
The evacuations in Southern California are the largest in the United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and this marks the first time NAMB has fully activated its disaster operations center since that time, Caison said. It is now operating full-time with four NAMB staff members and six volunteers.
California Southern Baptist shower units have been set up at First Baptist in Newhall and at PETCO Park in San Diego. With six private shower stalls, the units can handle about 600 people a day. Another 9,000 evacuees are being housed at Qualcomm Stadium, home of the San Diego Chargers.
A seven-person incident command team has been dispatched to California Baptist University in Riverside, Calif., where a command post will be set up in a university office on the CBU campus.
The university was selected for the incident command center because it is located in the geographic center of the ravaging fires, Hargis said. The fires stretch from Los Angeles to San Diego.
Hargis said more than 100 California disaster relief volunteers have been mobilized for duty, and the Arizona and Nevada Baptist conventions have been asked to provide replacements for feeding units in November. Arizona feeding and shower units are on standby for possible deployment, Caison said.
According to news reports, more than 426,000 acres have been charred by the chain of wildfires, fueled by Santa Ana winds that earlier gusted up to 100 mph in some places but are now in the 25 to 35 mph range. The winds, which are seriously hampering firefighting operations, are projected to diminish after Wednesday.
More than 1,500 homes have been destroyed and nearly 1 million people displaced in the Southern California area. Five people have been killed and more than 70 injured, including 34 firefighters. President Bush signed a major disaster declaration for the area Oct. 24, speeding relief aid, and he is expected to visit the region on Thursday.
Dwight Simpson, director of missions for the San Diego Baptist Association, told Baptist Press one of the needs that concerns him most is the evacuation of two ranches used by the association's Set Free ministry.
The drug and alcohol rehab program helps people who have been on the street because of their behaviors, and the two ranches in the El Cajon area were in the path of one of the fires, he said.
"We take them out to the ranches and give them 90 days of beans and rice and Jesus Christ," Simpson explained. "Eventually, as they've gone through that, they come back in through the hotel in El Cajon, where we begin repatriating them and getting them equipped for job skills and that sort of thing."
But now all 400 of the ranch residents, including 100 children, are seeking shelter at the hotel run by Set Free in El Cajon, Simpson said, and they desperately need meals.
"They've been going over to the food bank and getting bread and strawberries and salad greens, which is what they can get for nothing," Simpson said. "But they sent out a request for milk, eggs, meat or money to help purchase that to feed these 400 people three times a day for the next while.
"I'm going to go out and take them a check from the association to help them for the next day or two, but we could sure use some help if there's anybody out there that could send along a little something to help with buying the food to feed the 400 folks there at the hotel in El Cajon," he said.
The contact number for the San Diego association is 619-275-2550.
Tammy Cookson, who with her husband Dan and three teenage children evacuated their home in San Diego, told Baptist Press they've been staying at the Vision San Diego office for NAMB's Strategic Focus City initiative. The Cooksons serve as NAMB missionaries, and she said they wanted to help even though they're among those affected by the crisis.
"We felt like even though we had been evacuated, there are certainly people that are more in need than we are," Cookson said from PETCO Park. "It has been great to be out here. I think the kids have really felt like they're contributing to the efforts."
She and her children were cleaning the cambros, which hold hot meals for the disaster relief kitchen units set up at PETCO.
"Even though everything was so random and wild, we really felt everyone's prayers, and God has given us a sense of peace that no matter what happens, we're here to be a blessing to others," Cookson said. "We've lived here almost six years, and as far as we know, our home is still safe."
Simpson, the director of missions, said he wanted to commend Southern Baptists for the disaster relief network that was already in place before the first fire began.
"They're well-represented here in the middle of all this disaster," he said. "The unsaved and unchurched community will take note of who was here and who was prepared, and I think they will once again notice that Southern Baptists were right in the thick of all the action."
Erin Roach is a staff writer for Baptist Press; Mickey Noah is a writer for the North American Mission Board.
© Copyright 2007 Baptist Press. Used with permission.
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