ORANGE, Texas – Today I stopped by to check on a crew of volunteers. As I drove up the the street to the home where they were working on, I passed a cemetery and saw caskets that had literally popped out of the graves. Ike’s storm surge saturated the ground so much that the caskets were uprooted from their cement graves and scattered throughout the small cemetery. (more…)

BEAUMONT, Texas – Yesterday was a great day. We received free fuel at the fuel depot set up by the state to supply fuel to first responders, state officials and disaster relief agencies. The need for fuel, however, is still creating long lines at the pump. (more…)

DALLAS, Texas – As Texas braces for a heavy hit from Hurricane Ike, our disaster relief teams are ready to launch an immediate response within hours after the storm. (more…)

HATTIESBURG, Miss. – I arrived with three of my senior staff to Hattiesburg, Mississippi around 8:30 p.m. and we drove the Hattiesburg Salvation Army Corps buildings where we met up with our National Reserve Staff and equipment.

Today was a day of mixed emotions as I received phone calls from pastors and friends as they evacuated New Orleans.  These calls were from very strong and resilient people, but you could hear the fear in their voices.  Many of them just completed restoring their homes from Katrina and, after 3 years, were beginning to experience “normalcy.”  Now, as they drove along interstates, their hearts were gripped with the flashback and memories of everything they have worked for being washed away.
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Today marked a monumental day as Operation Blessing and The Home Depot embarked on their first ever disaster relief partnership. More than 125 Home Depot associates from 28 stores within Missouri and Illinois arrived at the Operation Blessing Mobile Command Center in Winfield, Missouri, to help clean up the devastation left behind by the floods. (more…)

WINFIELD, Missouri – We just ended our disaster relief efforts in Terre Haute, IN, where Operation Blessing coordinated more than 2,390 volunteer hours valued at $45,000. Terre Haute was a great success as we partnered with Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Rapid Response Team Chaplains and The Southern Baptist Disaster Relief. (more…)

TERRA HAUTE, Ind. – Our volunteer teams had a great surprise today – they were featured on the front page of the local newspaper, The Tribune Star. Everyone was encouraged when they read about the gratitude of the community. (more…)

TERRA HAUTE, Ind. – We started the week off strong with 27 volunteers on Monday. We ran 3 work crews cleaning and gutting homes. (Gutting is a term we use in disaster relief to describe the process of removing the sheetrock and insulation one foot above the water level in the flooded homes.) What a great week it has been, and it’s only Tuesday. (more…)

What an awesome day – we’ve reached a “turning point.”

City officials have really started to turn to and rely on Operation Blessing. As we worked, we gained the respect and favor with the local government, emergency management officials and residents.
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TERRA HAUTE, Ind. – On my first day out in the affected neighborhoods to do assessments with OBI’s construction foreman, I could not believe that after nine days there was still standing water, roads washed out with water still gushing over them and water still seeping up from the saturated ground. (more…)

SUFFOLK, Va. – It is day 2 …and we began by going to a local “look & leave mission” conducted by the Suffolk Emergency Management.  Residents gathered on the lawn of the Parks and Recreation Department to hear instructions on how they would be escorted to see their home for the first time since the storm. (more…)