Hurricane Response
Emergency Appeal From Church World Service
Situation Report
With winds of 145 miles per hour and blinding rain, Hurricane Katrina slammed onto the Louisiana coast near Grand Isle this morning as a powerful Category 4 storm and headed north, narrowly missing a direct hit on New Orleans while pounding the Mississippi coastline where 15-20-foot storm surges were predicted. The storm also hammered the Alabama coastline and affected beaches into the Florida panhandle. The National Hurricane Center projected Katrina would turn towards the northeast and continue wrecking havoc ( although progressively weakening) through Mississippi, northwest Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and possibly even western New York.
In southeast Louisiana, some 370,000 customers were without power. In New Orleans where an estimated 80 per cent of the population of 485,000 evacuated, the potential of a 15-foot storm surge which could compromise levies that protect the below-sea-level city caused concern about extensive flooding. As Katrina moved beyond the coastline, inland Mississippi residents as far north as Jackson and Meridian braced for heavy rain and hurricane-force winds. In south Florida where Katrina made its first landfall last week as a Category 1 storm, 314,000 residential and business customers remained without power and officials estimated insured damages as high as $2 billion
RESPONSE
This week Church World Service (CWS) Disaster Response and Recovery Liaisons (DRRLs) are meeting with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and partners in state Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOADs) via telephone conferences to identify:
-Material resource needs which CWS can help address through Gifts of the Heart Kits, Tools of Hope blankets, and other aid.
-Storm-affected areas where they will focus on facilitating development of long-term recovery organizations to assist vulnerable populations that will face unmet needs. (Based on its work in disasters affecting a comparable geographic area and knowledge of disaster experience in the affected area, CWS estimates as many as 20 recovery organizations may be organized and supported in Louisiana, Mississippi, northwest Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky.)
Deployment of DRRLs is scheduled for early next week to targeted areas where long-term recovery organizing work will be required:
-Lura Cayton to Louisiana
-Lesli Remaly to Mississippi
-Tim Johnson, if needed, to northwest to Alabama
Over the course of its response, CWS anticipates multiple DRRL deployments-- as many as 11 in just Mississippi and Louisiana (where need is anticipated to be the greatest and work will go on simultaneously in different areas) and Alabama alone. CWS may also deploy DRRLs to Tennessee and Kentucky where it will closely monitor effects of Katrina's impact as a potentially serious tropical storm. In other states affected by Katrina, including Florida where its DRRLs helped more than 40 communities develop capacity in long-term recovery during the 2004 hurricane season, CWS will respond on request.
Emergency Appeal
CWS is issuing this initial appeal for $300,000 (#6280- Hurricane Katrina Response) to support shipments of Gifts of the Heart Kits and other material aid as required, support long-term recovery organizing work of DRRLs, and provide seed grants to long-term recovery organizations as they are established.
Contributions to support these efforts may be sent to your denomination or directly to:
Church World Service
Hurricane Katrina Response -- #6280
P.O. Box 968
Elkhart, IN 46515
Contributions may also be made by credit card by calling: (800) 297-1516, ext. 222, or online at www.churchworldservice.org.
For further information about disasters to which Church World Service is responding please visit us online or call the CWS Hotline, (800) 297-1516.
CWS Emergency Response Program special contacts: (212) 870-3151
International: dderr@churchworldservice.org
Domestic: mailto:lreedbrown@churchworldservice.org
posted by HillChurchNews at 8:32 AM
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