Tag Archives: disaster relief

Morningside disaster team in Florida – Lives can change in only a day

One home destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Immokalee, Florida,

By Kami Klein

Imagine being a hard working family in a small agricultural town in Florida.  You don’t have much but everyday you give it the best you can. You work hard, you love your family and you support your church.  But then a storm like Hurricane Irma hits and is unlike any storm you can remember.  The town you knew, the job you went to everyday,  your home where your family and friends gathered and the simple vital items such as food and clean water are gone.

This is the fate of thousands of people in Immokalee, Florida, one of the hardest hit communities of Hurricane Irma.  With no power, lack of good drinking water and warm meals for families, the people in this community have been devastated.  At this very moment, the donations you have provided through our Disaster Relief fund  are giving hope and food to hungry people who have lost literally everything.

Yesterday our Morningside team, Mondo DeLaVega, Ricky Bakker, Tammy Sue Bakker, Daina Martin and our camera crew David Zorob, Hamilton Neumann and Adam Armstrong, began handing out the food from our food buckets.  The people stood in line for hours, waiting to fill bags, boxes and buckets up with rice, beans, pancake mix, vegetable stew, milk, banana and apple chips and so much more because of YOUR gifts to the relief effort.  At times, the line seemed never ending, and the experience of seeing so many who were waiting so patiently for help stirred the deepest emotions in the volunteers who were there.  

Another home destroyed by Hurricane Irma in Florida

Another-home-in-florida-damaged-by-Hurricane-Irma

Tammy Sue Bakker attempted to share the emotions that the volunteers were feeling. “If you have a heart, it’s just so hard to talk about it…We’ve got to keep helping people.  We have no choice!”  

Mondo and Tammy Sue agreed that the entire team has been completely changed by this humbling experience, and the needs they have seen from the disaster in Houston and now Florida are surreal.  On a Facebook live message Mondo wanted to deeply impress the great need that is going on all over the world right now.  

“We need your help.  This is not just a one day effort, this is an everyday kind of effort.  People need ministries like this one to give food and supplies.  Every little bit helps here but please, be a part of what we are doing right now.  This food we give today will only last a little while and then these families have to go out to find more.  Pray for this community, the volunteers, donate what you can and please pray for us!”  

The crew has been busy gathering stories and filming the community of Immokalee. The relief effort that is ongoing will be shared soon on The Jim Bakker Show. 

Danny Viera owns the only Christian bookstore in Fr. Myers. He has been coordinating all of the food for this effort.

Danny Viera owns the only Christian bookstore in Fr. Myers. He has been coordinating all of the food for this effort.

Your donations are making a huge impact in this disaster relief effort, but the urgency and the need is quite overwhelming!  We need you!  

So many have asked about our ministry going to help in Puerto Rico.  We are doing all we can to get there.  There are many logistics involved in getting this food to where it needs to go, so we must rely on your compassion and financial generosity to help us get these supplies to those that are starving right now in that country!  

Again, we thank you for your prayers!  Those many people who stood in line yesterday, their arms filled with food for their families when they walked home cannot thank you as they would wish but you are in their grateful prayers tonight!

With so much need around the world right now, it takes all of us to make a difference!  Please be a part of what God is asking us to do now!  

Give your gift today!! 

FEMA tells U.S. states to improve their own disaster relief efforts

A family that wanted to remain anonymous moves belongings from their home flooded by Harvey in Houston, Texas August 31, 2017.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – State and local governments need to become more self-sufficient in handling major disasters like Hurricane Harvey, FEMA Administrator Brook Long said in a televised interview on Sunday.

Speaking on CBS’ Face the Nation, Long said the federal support is intended to be a “ray of hope, a bridge to kick-start recovery,” and state and local governments need to do more on their own. They should not expect the federal government to make their citizens whole after major disasters, he said.

“We need elected officials at all levels to sit down and hit the reset button and make sure they have everything they need to increase levels of self-sufficiency,” Long said.

He called the massive devastation “a wakeup call for local and state officials,” saying they needed to fully fund their own emergency management offices and have rainy day funds set aside for such emergencies. “They can’t depend only on federal emergency management,” he said following pointed calls by Houston officials for FEMA to quickly increase staffing in the city and provide relief funds.

Long declined to offer an amount the White House would request Congress to provide for additional emergency assistance in the wake of Harvey. Earlier Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the cost of the storm had risen to between $150 billion and $180 billion.

Houston is making progress on several fronts to recover from Harvey, resuming city services and helping get people into housing and out of emergency shelters, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in separate comments on Face the Nation on Sunday.

“This is a can-do city. We’re not going to engage in a pity party,” said Turner. “People are taking care of each other.” Speaking from the city’s convention center, which once housed 10,000 people fleeing from flooding, he said there are “significantly less than 2,000” people now staying at the shelter.

 

(Reporting by Gary McWilliams; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

 

Myanmar floods kill two, displace tens of thousands

A woman carries water bottles and foods distributed by an aid organization during a flood in Kyaikto township, Mon state, Myanmar July 22, 2017.

By Wa Lone

YANGON (Reuters) – Flooding across large parts of Myanmar has displaced more than 100,000 people, causing two deaths, while dramatic riverbank erosion has washed away a Buddhist pagoda, officials, residents and state media said on Monday.

Water levels have risen steadily since unrelenting monsoon rain began to lash the heart of the Southeast Asian country in early July, driving some people to higher land or seek shelter in Buddhist monasteries, a disaster relief official said.

“The situation is under control, but what happens now will depend on the weather,” Ko Ko Naing, director general of the ministry of social welfare, relief and resettlement, told Reuters.

“We are prepared to support the flood-hit areas because flooding happens every year.”

The government has provided food and other assistance to a total of 116,817 displaced people by Monday, as well as longer-term shelter for those outside settlements where flood waters are not expected to subside immediately, he said.

One man drowned in the floods in the Sagaing region and another was swept away while crossing a stream in Chin state, said a resettlement official in the ministry, Kay Thwe Win.

On Saturday, images of the Buddha’s footprint that draw pilgrims to a pagoda in Magway region were submerged by the rising waters, although no damage was immediately apparent, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported.

A small dam also collapsed in the Bago region on Saturday, it said.

Video provided to Reuters by a Buddhist monk near Pakokku, 520 km (323 miles) north of the commercial hub of Yangon, showed a gold-leaf-covered pagoda slipping into the raging waters of the Ayeyarwady on Thursday.

The abbott at the pagoda, U Pyinnya Linkkara, said flooding was common in the area during the monsoon that runs from May to October, but this year’s floods caused alarming erosion.

Some riverside villages have been washed away entirely, he said.

“The villagers are now scared to live here,” he said. “The flooding has now decreased, but erosion continues.”

 

(Reporting by Wa Lone; Writing by Simon Lewis; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

 

Hurricane Matthew batters Florida as Haiti death toll rises

Rain falls and winds caused by storm are seen while Hurricane Matthew approaches in Melbourne, Florida,

By Scott Malone and Gabriel Stargardter

ORLANDO, Fla./MIAMI, Oct 7 (Reuters) – The first major hurricane threatening a direct hit on the United States in more than 10 years lashed Florida on Friday with heavy rains and winds after killing at least 339 people in Haiti on its destructive march north through the Caribbean.

Hurricane Matthew packed gusts of 100 miles per hour (160 kph) as it tracked north-northwest along Florida’s east coast, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. The storm’s eye was 25 miles (40 km) east of Cape Canaveral, home to the  nation’s chief space launch site.

“We are seriously ground zero here in Cape Canaveral — hunkered down, lights flickering, winds are crazy,” said
resident Sandy Wilk on Twitter.

The storm downed power lines and trees and destroyed billboards in Cape Canaveral, reported Jeff Piotrowski, a
40-year-old storm chaser from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“The winds are ferocious right now,” he said. “It’s fierce.”

NASA and the U.S. Air Force, which operate the Cape Canaveral launch site, took steps to safeguard personnel and
equipment. A team of 116 employees was bunkered down inside Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Control Center to ride out the
hurricane.

“We’ve had some close calls, but as far as I know it’s the first time we’ve had the threat of a direct hit,” NASA spokesman George Diller said by email from the hurricane bunker.

No significant damage or injuries were reported in West Palm Beach and other communities in south Florida where the storm downed trees and power lines earlier in the night, CNN and local
media reported.

About 300,000 Florida households were without power, local media reported. In West Palm Beach, street lights and houses went dark and Interstate 95 was empty as the storm rolled through the community of 100,000 people.

Hurricane Matthew was carrying extremely dangerous winds of  120 mph (195 kph) on Friday, but is expected to gradually weaken during the next 48 hours, the hurricane center said.

Matthew’s winds had dropped on Thursday night and into Friday morning, downgrading it to a Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. It could either plow inland or tear along the Atlantic coast through Friday night, the Miami-based center said.

Few storms with winds as powerful as Matthew’s have struck Florida, and the NHC warned of “potentially disastrous impacts.”

The U.S. National Weather Service said the storm could be the most powerful to strike northeast Florida in 118 years.

A dangerous storm surge was expected to reach up to 11 feet (3.35 meters) along the Florida coast, Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the Miami-based NHC, said on CNN.

“What we know is that most of the lives lost in hurricanes is due to storm surge,” he said.

Some 339 people were killed in Haiti, local officials said, and thousands were displaced after the storm flattened homes, uprooted trees and inundated neighborhoods earlier in the week. Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, which neighbors Haiti.

Damage and potential casualties in the Bahamas were still unclear as the storm passed near the capital, Nassau, on
Thursday and then out over the western end of Grand Bahama Island.

It was too soon to predict where Matthew might do the most damage in the United States, but the NHC’s hurricane warning extended up the Atlantic coast from southern Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina. More than 12 million people in the United States were under hurricane watches and warnings, according to the Weather Channel.

The last major hurricane, classified as a storm bearing sustained winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph), to make landfall on U.S. shores was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Jeff Masters, a veteran hurricane expert, said on his Weather Underground website (www.wunderground.com) that Matthew’s wind threat was especially serious at Cape Canaveral, which juts into the Atlantic off central Florida.

“If Matthew does make landfall along the Florida coast, this would be the most likely spot for it. Billions of dollars of facilities and equipment are at risk at Kennedy Space Center and nearby bases, which have never before experienced a major hurricane,” Masters wrote.

‘AS SERIOUS AS IT GETS’

Roads in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were jammed, and gas stations and food stores ran out of supplies as the storm approached early on Thursday.

Governor Rick Scott warned there could be “catastrophic” damage if Matthew slammed directly into the state and urged some 1.5 million people there to evacuate.

Scott, who activated several thousand National Guard troops to help deal with the storm, warned that millions of people were likely to be left without power.

Florida, Georgia and South Carolina opened shelters for evacuees. As of Thursday morning, more than 3,000 people were being housed in 60 shelters in Florida, Scott said.

Those three states as well as North Carolina declared states of emergency, empowering their governors to mobilize theNational Guard.

President Barack Obama called the governors of the four states on Thursday to discuss preparations for the storm. He declared a state of emergency in Florida and South Carolina, a move that authorized federal agencies to coordinate disaster relief efforts. Late Thursday, Obama declared an emergency in Georgia and ordered federal aid to the state.

“Hurricane Matthew is as serious as it gets. Listen to local officials, prepare, take care of each other,” Obama warned people in the path of the storm in a posting on Twitter.

Hundreds of passenger flights were canceled in south Florida, and cancellations were expected to spread north in
coming days along the storm’s path, airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines
said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Nick Carey in Chicago, Harriet McLeod in Charleston, S.C., Doina Chiacu in Washington, Joseph Guyler Delva in Haiti, Irene Klotz and Laila Kearney; Writing by Frances Kerry and Tom Brown; Editing by Catherine Evans)