DALLAS - 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.

Right now, we have pre-staged a team of first responders, supplies and heavy machinery in Dallas ahead of an imminent strike from Hurricane Ike, which officials are predicting could strengthen to a Category 3 storm before making landfall later tonight.

We arrived in Texas yesterday from New Orleans, where we’ve spent the last week assisting residents of St. Bernard Parish following Gustav. We’re now monitoring Hurricane Ike’s progress and will move to a closer safe-area once the storm’s track becomes more certain.

Today I met with officials from the Texas Emergency Operations Center to discuss our response plan. OBI’s national disaster relief staff are on-site in Texas, as well as our mobile command center, a crane, skid steer, shower and construction trailers, and a mobile kitchen that can feed up to 2,000 people each day. We have already pre-staged more than 33,000 pounds of disaster relief supplies including nonperishable food and ready-to-eat meals (MREs) for immediate response.

In response to Gustav, we provided over 5,600 free hot meals for residents, managed distribution of over 19 tons of ice, assisted with debris removal, and distributed over 255,000 pounds of emergency relief supplies, food, water, hygiene kits and disposable diapers.

Our team is standing by and ready to aid the victims of Hurricane Ike!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Disaster, Jody Herrington, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.