In a statement made at the White House this morning, President Bush again urged Texas residents to comply with evacuation orders.
“This is a big storm, and it’s really important for our citizens there on the Texas coast to follow the instructions of the local authorities,” Bush said. “Officials at every level of government are preparing for the worst.”Bush is scheduled to fly to Texas and Colorado on Friday to visit with emergency workers and the U.S. Northern Command headquarters ahead of Hurricane Rita, the White House reported this morning.
Numerous volunteer organisations are also gearing up for Rita’s impact.
Jim Burton, director of volunteer mobilisation at the North American Mission Board, the parent organisation for Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, says that preparing for Rita is going to be a stretch.
“We are already engaged in the largest natural disaster in recent U.S. history,” Burton told the Baptist Press. “To now gear up for another hurricane when there is so much more work to do in the Gulf....that’s going to be tough, [but] we have the capacity to respond to both.”
The Salvation Army released a statement on Monday saying that they are confident of their abilities to effectively respond to, “any need Rita might impose on the Texas coast,” and have placed personnel on standby for immediate deployment.
“With much of our equipment and personnel still serving in the areas affected by Katrina we are having to look carefully at our available resources,” said Captain John Birks, Texas Divisional Secretary for Disaster. “We have approximately 18 mobile feeding units we will stage in a location ready to respond. We won’t know that location though until later this week as we watch the projections for landfall.”
Christian relief and development agency International Aid announced today that its hurricane relief operations, which have been in place since Katrina struck on Aug. 29th, are now preparing to conduct an additional aid distribution effort in the wake of Hurricane Rita.
The Michigan-based agency expects to draw on the assets it has already assembled in the region during the past three weeks, which include on-site relief distribution and logistics teams; its major relief distribution center at Stennis International Airport in Hancock County, Miss.; close working ties to local and federal officials; and the agency’s extensive donor network.
“We have the process and infrastructure in place to wage an expanded Gulf Coast relief effort on two fronts,” said Myles D. Fish, International Aid President and CEO. “Our team is in continual consultation today with regional government officials in our shared command center at Stennis airport. If a temporary evacuation is ordered, we expect to return shortly, and our forward-deployed relief centre will enable us to move supplies rapidly into the affected area.”
Meanwhile, AP reports that National Guard and medical units have been placed on standby as helicopters were being positioned and search-and-rescue boats from the state wildlife department were staged on high ground. Louisiana’s governor said she also asked for 15,000 more federal troops.
If Rita comes ashore as a Category 4 storm, it will be the first time since 1915 that two Category 4 storms hit the U.S. mainland in the same year.
Justin Camacho
Christian Today Correspondent
