• Karyn Lewis

The Salvation Army's Southern Territory Providing Meals and Shelter For Hurricane Delta Relief

Jackson, MS (October 11, 2020) - Hurricane Delta made landfall overnight Friday, October 9th, near the town of Creole, Louisiana, a city in Cameron Parish with 660 residents, as a Category 2 hurricane. Creole is approximately 12 miles east, where Hurricane Laura made landfall six weeks ago. Thankfully, Hurricane Delta quickly weakened into a tropical depression and very few areas were affected.

The Salvation Army’s focus for service delivery will be Southwest Louisiana in Lake Charles and Lafayette, where there are widespread power outages. Power is being restored quickly going from 650,000 outages to 340,000 within the past 24 hours. Twenty-three shelters opened in Louisiana for emergency shelter from Delta with an overnight population of 7,419. As of 4 PM CDT on 10-10-2020, there were ten shelters open with 882 residents.

Twenty-six mobile feeding units were deployed to support service delivery in Lake Charles, Lafayette, Alexandria, and Monroe, LA. One Texas IMAT with disaster relief equipment deployed to Lake Charles on Saturday, October 10th, 2020, and one Florida IMAT with five mobile feeding units is deploying to Lafayette, Louisiana, today, October 11th, 2020. Approximately 84,000 meals are prepared for initial distribution in southwest Louisiana and other affected areas. Service delivery is predicted to last one week.

As natural disasters can increase mental stress, The Salvation Army’s Emotional & Spiritual Care HOPEline remains available.  Anyone needing a caring listener – whether because of natural disaster, COVID-19, or the stress of life in general – can call 844-458-HOPE (4673) for support.

For the latest emergency disaster services news from The Salvation Army, follow the social feed on Twitter at @salarmyeds or visit disaster.salvationarmyusa.org. To donate to The Salvation Army’s disaster relief efforts, visit HelpSalvationArmy.org.