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The True Heroes of Katrina A great tragedy, such as Hurricane Katrina, brings out the best and the worst in human nature. The widespread looting which engulfed New Orleans was sickening. TV cameras captured a few of the brave heroes putting their own lives at risk on dangling ropes from helicopters as they descended to save the lives of hundreds stranded on rooftops. By Thursday morning, however, not one TV story I saw spotlighted my favourite heroes in tragedies of this sort - the 1,400 Southern Baptist volunteers who left comfortable homes to man 100 mobile disaster relief units, including 26 semi-trailers with huge kitchens capable of cooking 300,000 meals a day. The Red Cross gets credit for feeding hungry survivors, but where did they get the food? On Monday and Tuesday the Army supplied 500,000 of what it calls MREs, Meals Ready to Eat. These packets are used extensively in Iraq. By Wednesday food was prepared by Southern Baptist volunteers who left their families across the South to drive disaster relief units, paid for by church members, to the hurricane- flattened streets of Biloxi, Picayune, Pascagoula and the lesser hit but stricken cities of Hattiesburg, Meridian, Baton Rouge, Alexandria, Lafayette and 18 other cities. The mobile kitchens cooked not only for those whose homes were destroyed along the coast, but also for the tens of thousands of refugees who fled from New Orleans and the Mississippi coast inland with only the clothes on their backs. The Red Cross asked Southern Baptists to add additional units that could offer 500,000 meals a day by the weekend, plus man Red Cross units lacking volunteer drivers/cooks. It also asked the Salvation Army and Operation Blessing of the Christian Broadcasting Network for similar feeding units. Operation Blessing founded by Pat Robertson, sent mobile kitchens that could cook up to 310,000 meals a day to storm victims. However, none of these feeding units were able to reach the flooded streets of New Orleans as this column went to press. One Baptist unit from Memphis tried to enter America's Mardi Gras city, but was diverted to Baton Rouge as a second wave of refugees fled the stricken city. To its great credit, the Red Cross took the cooked meals from the Salvation Army, Southern Baptists and Operation Blessing - and transported them in heated units that could negotiate the rising waters in New Orleans to thousands of victims without homes, jobs, power or food. The Red Cross carried the food to shelters in New Orleans, such as the giant Louisiana Superdome where 30,000 fled before conditions became so terrible that a second evacuation was ordered by authorities. Buses transported a second tide of refugees to Baton Rouge and beyond where they were greeted by cheerful Salvation Army, Southern Baptist and Operation Blessing volunteers. Activity Report - Day 19 Volunteers Serving: 5,000+ Volunteer Days: 24,054 Meals Prepared: 2,100,000 Jobs Completed: 2,363 Showers Provided: 12,547 Laundry Loads: 2,364 Messages Sent: 1,310 Michael J. McManus (courtesy of David VIRTUE online) Published in the October 2005 edition of the Church Magazine
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