As Texas and Louisiana began feeling the power of Hurricane Rita, Southern Baptist disaster relief prepared to respond.
According to a press release, the American Red Cross had asked for all Southern Baptist disaster relief units to be ready to respond to Rita.
According to Joe Conway, spokesman for Southern Baptist disaster relief, 26 units were staging at sites in Oklahoma; Cedar Hill and Aquilla, Texas; Kelly Air Force Base near San Antonio; Baton Rouge, La.; Meridian, Biloxi, Hattiesburg and Picayune, Miss.; and Mobile.
As of press time, Rita had been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane after reaching Category 5 status. Slated to make landfall along the northeast Texas and southwest Louisiana Gulf Coast — near Port Arthur, Texas — Rita’s wind and rain caused levee breaches in New Orleans even before landfall.
Mandatory evacuations had been issued for parts of Texas and Louisiana, forcing some teams responding to Hurricane Katrina to relocate to different sites in Louisiana and Mississippi, said Tim Yarbrough, church relations manager for the North American Mission Board (NAMB) — serving as public information officer for disaster relief.
According to a release from NAMB, more than 6,000 Southern Baptists are now actively involved in Katrina disaster relief efforts in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. As of press time, Southern Baptists in 56 mobile kitchens have served more than 4.8 million meals and 36 state Baptist conventions are now involved in the response.
Alabama Baptists rotated out cleanup/recovery, feeding and other teams beginning Sept. 20 and deployed others to Mississippi and Louisiana.
An Alabama unit was also initially reported as staging in Texas, in preparation for Rita, however, that, too, was put on hold.
Financial contributions to Katrina relief are still strong. At press time, the Alabama Baptist disaster relief fund had received $1,468,739.41, and NAMB had received donations and pledges amounting to $3,568,267.78.
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