Saturday dawned bright and clear in Columbus, but by the time the sun was high in the sky, Alton Ming and Shawn Jordan were well on their way to the East Coast, carrying food, supplies and good will to residents impacted by Hurricane Irene.
For more than a century — since the Galveston, Texas hurricane of 1900 — the Salvation Army has dedicated itself to meeting the physical, spiritual and emotional needs of disaster victims. Maj. Paul White, head of the local branch of the Salvation Army, wasn”t surprised Friday when he got the call for assistance.
“We combat disasters with acts of God,” states a page on the Salvation Army”s Alabama-Louisiana-Mississippi Division website.
In keeping with that mission, the division”s Jackson headquarters dispatched seven mobile feeding units — including one from Columbus — to Lexington, N.C., where crews will remain until Hurricane Irene passes and they can mobilize in the hardest-hit areas along the eastern seaboard.
The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 7:30 a.m. Saturday at Cape Lookout, N.C. and is expected to skirt the mid-Atlantic coast, impacting more than 65 million people, from the Carolinas to the New England states.
Ming and Jordan are taking enough food and water to feed 500 people for approximately two weeks. The “canteen” unit, a squarish, white truck, is equipped to provide everything they will need to cook, serve meals, and even live out of it, if necessary. It is one of 370 emergency response vehicles the Salvation Army sends to disaster scenes.
In addition to the feeding units, satellite communications trailers will also be sent to the East Coast, offering broadband Internet and a place for storm victims to make contact with worried relatives and let them know they are OK.
By Saturday night, eight deaths had already been attributed to Hurricane Irene. In advance of the storm, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took the unprecedented measure of shutting down the mass transit system and issuing the mandatory evacuation of more than 370,000 people, according to Associated Press reports.
“It”s been years since they”ve received a major hurricane,” said Mark Jones, public relations director for the Alabama-Louisiana-Mississippi Division of the Salvation Army. “People are heeding the warnings seriously. We understand this could be a substantial impact and a substantial response. We”re in this for the long haul.”
The Salvation Army is not accepting donations of food or clothing at this time. Instead, Jones said the best way for Mississippians to help those affected by the storms is to send monetary contributions earmarked “Irene.”
You can make a one-time donation of $10 to aid storm victims by texting the word “storm” to the Salvation Army at 80888. Messaging and data rates may apply. The donation will be billed to your phone bill.
You can also donate online at https://donate.salvationarmyusa.org/irene.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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