Disaster relief teams start work; ‘significant number of volunteers’ still needed

The road to recovery is “going to be a long operation” in the states affected by Hurricane Helene and “will need a significant number of volunteers,” said Mark Wakefield, Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief strategist.

“We need our trained volunteers to commit to go, and if they can stay longer, to stay longer,” he said. “We need a commitment, because there are a lot of hurting people.”

Two teams are currently serving, Wakefield said, noting that many more will deploy in the future.

A team in Alma, Georgia, is setting up today (Sept. 29) to serve 9,000 meals tomorrow from a mobile kitchen.

“We had hoped to try to cook a one-pot meal there today, but supplies haven’t arrived yet,” Wakefield said. “We hope that sometime in the next hours that things will start arriving there.”

Chainsaw and tarp work

A second team is en route to Clearwater, South Carolina, to do chainsaw work and tarp damaged roofs.

“We’ll be managing the response in that area and that county, maybe in other counties as well,” Wakefield said.

In both locations, volunteer teams are working with no electricity, doing what they can with generators.

“The conditions there for our teams are the same as what the homeowners in those areas are dealing with. It’s going to be tough for a little while, but we’re going to get it done,” Wakefield said.

A team from Southeast Alabama Baptist Association also joined up with teams from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention working in Live Oak, Florida, over the weekend to do chainsaw work. They recently returned home.

Prayer needs

Wakefield asked Alabama Baptists to pray for those affected by the storms and to pray that trained disaster relief volunteers would respond to the need in the coming weeks.

He also asked for prayer for disaster relief leaders in all the affected states — Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee. Southern Baptists are organizing together to deploy volunteers to the places where they’re needed the most, he said.

Currently the death toll from the Category 4 hurricane stands at 90 across the five states, according to news sources.