Humanitarian supplies aid Mexico
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Members living in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula are still struggling to recover from Hurricane Isidore and her successor, Hurricane Lili.
Some 800 member families have been forced from their homes and have found shelter from the storms in relatives' homes, community centers and Church buildings.
Meanwhile, a full-time missionary has been killed in Mexico. Elder Gregory Scott Johnson, 20, of Fountain Green, Utah, died Sept. 29. He was serving in the Mexico Merida Mission.
"Elder Johnson was watching an approaching storm with his companion on the roof of their apartment building when he was shocked by a high voltage power line," said Church spokesman Dale Bills.
A cargo plane packed with 160,000 pounds of humanitarian supplies from Church headquarters arrived Oct. 2 in Merida, a colonial city in the Yucatan Peninsula. The relief shipment is the equivalent of six semitrailer loads and included roofing materials to help displaced members rebuild their homes.
Local and area priesthood leaders responded immediately after Isidore hit the Yucatan Sept. 22, providing affected members with food boxes, medicine, bedding and shelter supplies.
The Merida Mexico Temple and the Veracruz Mexico Temple sustained slight damage during the storms.
Isidore's havoc continues to be felt. The stormy weather ushered into the Yucatan by Isidore "just sat there and continued to dump rain," said Craig Knight of the Church Welfare Department.
The water that inundated the peninsula has not receded, keeping many from returning to their homes. Now Hurricane Lili is expected to brush the Yucatan coastline on its path from the Caribbean to the U.S. Gulf Coast.
"Things are much worse than we had anticipated," Brother Knight said.
As of press time Oct. 3, nearly a half-million people in Louisiana and Texas were urged to evacuate — some of them for the second time in a week — as a less powerful but still dangerous Hurricane Lili pounded low-lying Louisiana coastal towns. The storm also wreaked havoc in the Caribbean; Church Welfare Department leaders were waiting for reports from both the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. Welfare leaders are keeping a close watch also on needs in Tokyo, Japan, where tropical storm Higos hit Oct. 1, and are sending food and other aid to drought-stricken southern Africa, and to the Ivory Coast, which is plagued by civil unrest. Members may help by marking "Humanitarian Service" on donation forms. Please see more coverage of the Church's response to these disasters in the Oct. 19 Church News.
