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.

One of our team members, Pete, waited in line at the state fuel depot for 3 hours. Overall, gas stations seem to be improving.  The lines are not as long at some of the stations, however not all are open yet in town.

Power has been restored to some of Beaumont, but not to the church where we are headquartered.  Our staff and a team of electricians got our generator hooked up to the church’s Family Life Center where we are now able to house volunteers.  It is running like a champ and powering the whole building. Our base camp is now up and running including volunteer accommodations and a shower trailer.

Right now, our greatest need is for volunteers to help with gutting homes, debris removal and general clean up. We have volunteers signed up through next week, but need a lot more. Interested volunteers can contact our volunteer coordinator at volunteer@ob.org or visit our volunteer page for more information.
  
I went to Bridge City yesterday to meet with the mayor and other key officials.  Yesterday our crews provided cleanup assistance to several homes of city officials and first responders. I went to the city yard and offices and met the building inspector, director of utilities, city manager and mayor. The mayor told me that he walked in his house once after the storm, saw that it was flooded and immediately closed the door and walked out. He said he was too busy to worry about it. He asked me if Operation Blessing could provide debris removal and cleanup assistance to his first responders and staff, so tomorrow we are going to the chief of police of the school district to help clean up his home. 
 

Bridge City was over 95 percent flooded. I was told that all but 5 structures received water damage. I offered to send a load of drinks to the mayor for distribution and they gladly received them. Tomorrow one of our staff is setting up a work order station at the Point Of Distribution (POD). Today was the first day since the storm that they had a POD set up with water, ice and MREs (meals-ready-to-eat).
 
Yesterday I sent team members and volunteers to go door to door getting work orders filled out from residents – many of whom rode out the storm. We took a crew out and removed a tree from a home of a disable vet and older couple and did another gutting job. Tomorrow, crews will be going out again to work in Orange and Bridge City.

The hot meals for first responders and volunteers continue to go great. Yesterday we served 385 breakfasts and 396 dinners.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 4:20 pm 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.