Southern Baptist Disaster Relief units and Send Relief centers are responding to last weekend’s cold and lingering freezing temperatures, with more than 700 volunteers engaged in numerous efforts, including feeding, warming centers and cleanup units.
Although most of South Carolina was spared from major tree damage and power outages, Winter Storm Fern brought a mix of sleet and freezing rain to the Upstate with one to two inches of accumulation. Across the Carolinas, power had been restored to more than 131,000 residents, but nearly 22,000 remained without power as of 2 p.m. on Monday.
South Carolina Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers were deployed for Winter Storm Fern, said state director Susan Peugh. Two sites were set up in Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, and feeding operations were opened at both locations. Both locations were asked to support the counties’ Emergency Operation Center.
Spartanburg feeding also supported six warming shelters and two homeless centers, Peugh noted. Florence Baptist Association’s feeding unit served in Spartanburg, and Macedonia Baptist feeding unit served in Cherokee. More than 1,800 meals were served.
The I-20 corridor along northern Louisiana also experienced severe winter conditions through freezing rain and ice. As of 9 p.m.on Jan. 27, approximately 1,300 poles, 4,660 spans of wire and 310 transformers suffered damage.
Up to 50 volunteers from Louisiana and Missouri Disaster Relief are working from Monroe to serve 200 meals a day for Red Cross shelters. Chainsaw teams have joined the effort, with Missouri also providing an insulated shower unit.
Arkansas Baptist Disaster Relief is dispatching 40-50 volunteers to operate a site at Delhi, La., with support by way of a shower unit from Southern Baptists of Texas (SBTC) Disaster Relief. Power was expected to return to the area by Jan. 29.
Near the southernmost point of the storm blamed for over three dozen deaths, 50 members of Texans on Mission have been preparing 3,800 meals daily for the homeless in Dallas, up to this weekend. SBTC Disaster Relief has a pending request from a county emergency manager and is waiting for more information to proceed.
Ice and freezing rain hit Tennessee particularly hard, with power outages peaking at 315,533 before dropping to approximately 130,000 this morning.
Tennessee Disaster Relief dispatched volunteers throughout the state. In Mt. Juliet, workers are operating a mobile kitchen, chainsaw teams, and skid steers while preparing 110 meals each day that will be sent to National Guard units in six locations. Teams are preparing 250 meals per day in McNairy County that will be distributed by the Salvation Army for 100 linemen restoring power, as well as those in a warming shelter.
Another mobile kitchen is preparing 1,000 meals for warming shelters in Dixon, Perry and Hickman counties. A shower unit, bunk trailer, skid steers, chainsaws and feeding teams are also joining the effort there.
Up to 100 chainsaw team members alone are responding to needs throughout central Tennessee. The ice damage in North Mississippi generated a similar need as Mississippi Disaster Relief was sending 18 chainsaw teams to Greenwood, Grenada, Boone and Oxford. Approximately 40-50 members are slated to be at each sit daily.
Kentucky Baptist Disaster Relief dispatched a mobile kitchen and feeding team to Glasgow, also in support of the Salvation Army. Approximately 1,200 meals a day will be sent to the south central part of the state and the Tennessee border counties of Macon, Sumner, Clay and Jackson.
Coy Webb, crisis response director for Send Relief, said the Memphis and St. Louis centers are serving as warming centers.
“Southern Baptist Disaster Relief continues its response to the winter storm as we are feeding those affected in multiple states and now deploying chainsaw teams in Mississippi and Tennessee as we seek to offer help and the hope of Christ to those impacted by this massive storm,” Webb said.
Most areas where Disaster Relief operated today struggled to reach above freezing. Those temperatures, of course, will drop tonight. Nashville’s low will be in the teens.
“The cold is challenging for volunteers as they work in frigid weather and creates deadly conditions for those still without power,” Webb continued.
Those deadly conditions are complicated by ice that won’t melt as long as temperatures remain freezing. In locations where melting does take place, refreezing happens overnight. In addition, NOAA is forecasting “dangerously cold air” from the Arctic for the eastern half of the country this weekend.
“This could be longest duration of cold in several decades,” the report said.
Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press. With additional reporting by Todd Deaton, managing editor of The Baptist Courier.