Columbus Mission to Mandeville, Katrina Relief

Hurricane Rita was still playing the spoiler in our trip to Mandeville Sunday night. The downpours of rain were massive, especially while we were unloading luggage in Tuscaloosa at University CofC. The volunteers there were excellent hosts for our overnight stay. We had heard of reports of Tornados in their area while coming into Birmingham, but the warnings had all expired by the time we got there.

This morning was a different story, however. Aside form the heat and oppressive humidity, the only downpour we had was lovebugs stuck to the windshields and overheating 1 van by plugging the radiator.

The storm damage showed up in an obvious way as we crossed the Mississippi state line on the way into Meridian, but it's spotty, even here in Mandeville. The picture is of a heavily hit section of the median of I-59 in southern Mississippi. We saw houses on 5 acre or so lots on the way to Folsom that looked worse than this. There are large stands of trees down in some places. Heavily forested areas that are, but for a very few trees flattened, and there are other areas where you wouldn't know anything as extreme as Hurricane Katrina had happened.

Most highway signs have been blown down but appear to be built with breakaway's to allow them to fall with minimal damage to the sign. Some were trashed anyway. This picture taken by Alicia Shrewsburry also shows part of a large lot full of new house trailers and campers. Presumably this is one of the FEMA lots that haven't been distributed.

Kevin, Nick, and I drove a 24' Hertz truck full of palletized "family food boxes" (enough food for a family of 4 for 1 day) to Folsom Baptist Church in the one stoplight town of Folsom Louisiana today. They have a feeding relief program going where people can get a hot meal, food to take home, and supplies, much like what Tammany is providing. Their warehouse is about the same size, but their demand has outstripped their supply. There have been days they have not had food to hand out and they were VERY thankful for what we took them today.

Tammany had been getting 5-6 semi truck loads per day, but that has slowed to 3 the last few days. I asked how they were getting that food, whether it was ordered or just turned up. Like so much in this effort where God is showing his work so blatantly, it just shows up.

Most mornings the National Guard stops in and loads up on supplies. They leave things with people who need them that they come by during the day. They can go places that we can't yet. We spoke to a couple of National Guardsmen from California who were assigned to a Red Cross shelter in the community center in Folsom. The shelter was a large gymnasium that was wall to wall cots.

A group of healthcare types is leaving at 5:15 in the morning to give vaccines someone donated this week to 100 ATF workers. Like we have posted for our volunteers, people working in this area need Hepatitis A and Tetanus. There are a lot of "official" relief workers who haven't been vaccinated. The water is still not safe here in Mandeville. The church has put up signs on fountains not to drink, and on bathroom doors, not to brush teath with the water. Fortunately this effort is well blessed for bottled water. It moves fast, but has been coming in ahead of demand.

We send trucks out into neighborhoods loaded with food boxes and people come out who need them. Robin took one of these out today, but was only out for about 3 hours. He emptied half a 24' truck. He said it was a nice neighborhood, but was just getting electric and other services reestablished.

Mark, Kim, and her daughter stopped in on an older gentleman this afternoon who was in questionable condition. He had a badley swollen leg and didn't really know how much water and food he had. They talked with him and prayed with him, but were very concerned about him tonight and want to check up on him tomorrow. Please pray for the victims and those who are meeting them for the strength, courage, and right words that only the Holy Spirit can provide.

Thought everyone would be impressed to see the map Tammany is keeping with a dot where volunteers have come in from. Most groups have been couples or small teams of four or so.





There is so much more work to do here than there are people to do it. They have a Git R Dun board that has a project sheet and map filled out with people in the community who need work done. These are cleanup of houses, clearing trees and brush, and other tasks. A group can form up and grab one of these to go work on. A lot of the guys did these today and came back absolutely drenched and exhausted. Their the ones who are snoring in the warehouse now while those of us who drove air conditioned Hertz trucks around in heavy traffic all afternoon are still up blogging ;-)





They also have a Bin Dun board that resides on the opposite side of the church secretary's door. So you have photographic evidence of how much more we could help people here.













Thought this was worth posting. This sign is in the hall between the "warehouse" sanctuary and the Git R Dun board and absolutely exemplifies the attitude of the local staff after 4 weeks of this nonstop, heartwrenching, work in Jesus' name.

More Tomorrow!
John McGuire