SBTC Disaster Relief responding to Louisiana floods

BATON ROUGE, La.—Disaster relief volunteers from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention were responding to needs in Louisiana a week after floods from Hurricane Isaac inundated the coast and southern portions of the state. Those trained in mud-out recovery, damage assessment and chaplaincy were working side by side in Baton Rouge and in Franklinton, La.

The SBTC teams were scheduled for four weeks of ministry there, with a new team deploying weekly.

Forty-seven SBTC volunteers trained in mass feeding, cleanup and recovery, water purification, shower and laundry ministry, childcare, and communications were being housed at First Baptist Church of Franklinton, La., and Zoar Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, SBTC DR Director Jim Richardson said.

Among those devastated by the waters were many mobile home owners, he said. “We'll be helping them remove furniture and trying to recover their belongings,” he added.

Rains from the hurricane, which made landfall in southern Louisiana on Aug. 29 and dumped torrential rains on Louisiana and Arkansas while moving north, caused the evacuation of an estimated 60,000 people along the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts and left 1 million people without power, news reports said.

Flooding ranged from 12 feet in Plaquemines Parish, southeast of New Orleans, where waters surged above a levee, to a foot of water in Slidell, northeast of New Orleans, officials reported. Heavy rains followed a path north into Arkansas and far eastern Texas and southeast Oklahoma.

Also, an SBTC DR shower unit was ministering at a shelter at Faith and Grace Church in Houston in the days following the flooding.