'Helping hands' reach out to victims
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In the wake of two hurricanes that devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast in September, Church members are providing emergency relief services and working to help evacuees. Following are some of their stories.
MOBILE, Ala. — The Mobile Register printed a story Sept. 23 detailing the Church's contribution of food for hurricane evacuees in the Daphne Civic Center. When members heard the center needed food, local leaders made an official request through headquarters and food was sent from the Tucker, Ga., bishops' storehouse.
"When I saw the form that their representative pulled out and started checking off, I couldn't believe the amount of food they offered," Bill Meese, a volunteer supervisor at the center, told the Register. "Cases of canned vegetables, fruits, stews, fresh produce, fresh meats — you name it, they have it. And they offered as much as we needed."
A volunteer pastor quoted in the article called the Latter-day Saint donation an answer to prayer.
"The Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, has flooded the Gulf Coast with volunteers wearing white 'Mormon Helping Hands' T-shirts," the article concluded. "Nicknamed the 'Stormin' Mormons' they have been assisting communities with the clean-up effort since the storm hit. Members of the Mobile stake, which includes Mobile, Daphne, Atmore and Foley members, have been working every weekend during the month of September in Pascagoula, Miss."
AUSTIN, Texas — With Hurricane Rita threatening Houston, missionaries of the Texas Houston East Mission evacuated early. Leaving on Wednesday, Sept. 21, they avoided the collosal traffic jams that afflicted later evacuees, preventing some of them from getting out of the city at all.
Around 100 missionaries formed a caravan to Austin, Texas, 150 miles west of Houston, and gathered at the Round Rock Texas Stake Center. There, they were fed a meal prepared by local members and the 23 sister missionaries were taken into the homes of members. After bunking one night on donated air mattresses at the stake center, the elders were also given a place to stay in the homes of members. The missionaries performed some service while they waited for the hurricane to pass, and worried about what the storm would do to the people they had come to know and love in their mission.
SLIDELL, La. — After Hurricane Katrina, Kevin Foster, a satellite and IT specialist from Neosho, Mo., came to the Church's Central Command Center in Slidell, bringing three Starband Satellite systems that allowed the command center to have broadband Internet access. The systems were provided by Max Mattia, owner of Tecnicamattia of Raleigh, N.C.
With Internet installed, members of the community were able to come to the command center for e-mail assistance. A woman who had lost all her possessions when her home washed away came in and needed help to register with Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Once she had completed the FEMA registration with the help of center volunteers, the woman asked if she could send a message to her daughter who is in the U.S. Army in Seoul, Korea, and who did not know if her family was dead or alive.
"Wanted to touch bases and tell you we're okay," she wrote. "The telephones are still out and the computer is down. When we get it back up, we'll contact you again. Love, Maw Maw."
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Missionaries from the Texas Houston South Mission evacuated to a designated meetinghouse shelter: the Seguin Ward, San Antonio Texas East Stake — approximately 160 miles out of harm's way.
Their trip, however, turned out to be an unanticipated but spiritually fulfilling adventure.
Reports of evacuating motorists spending 16 or more hours traveling the 160 miles were not exaggerated. Hundreds ran out of gasoline, but not the enterprising missionaries. At one point a group of them put their cars in neutral and pushed them along Interstate 10 in the sweltering heat to conserve fuel. Not one mission vehicle ran out of gas. They all arrived in Seguin late Thursday night or very early Friday morning.
Besides a schedule of mission home-type activities — scripture study, prayer, training and meetings — the missionaries provided service to some 400 evacuees housed at the local coliseum.
NEW ORLEANS, La. — Michael Dohm, a legal information technology consultant who has left his occupation behind for a time to serve as coordinator of field operations for the command center, expressed enthusiasm over the venue for Oct. 1- 2 weekend efforts — New Orleans. With the causeway bridge from Covington to Metarie now open, the Church will establish a staging center at the New Orleans stake center in Metarie.
"Everyone who was affected by the storm needs a safe haven," Brother Dohm said. "The Emergency Response Center, the Slidell Storehouse, provides that. As we listen to hurricane victims' experiences, we can provide them commodities, food and service with no strings attached. We don't charge them thousands of dollars to take drywall out. We'll tarp their roofs and get them out of the weather."
