With recovery work still going non-stop in Louisiana after Hurricane Gustav, Southern Baptist disaster relief workers have been watching the Texas coastline where Hurricane Ike was predicted to cut a swath between Port Lavaca and Bay City early morning of Sept. 13.
Port Lavaca is 80 miles northeast of Corpus Christi, while Bay City is 70 miles southwest of Houston.
Moving in a west-northwest direction with maximum winds at 100 mph, Ike was predicted to strengthen considerably before making landfall as a deadly Category 3 or 4 hurricane, according to weather forecasts.
FEMA representatives were expecting Ike to produce a storm surge somewhere between 14 and 22 feet – possibly as high as 27 feet if Ike takes a more northerly path. Houston could experience winds between 80-110 mph with gusts up to 120 mph. Officials said some 3.5 million Texans could be without power.
FEMA has compared Ike to a Category 3 hurricane that struck the Texas coast in 1983, killing 23, injuring 3,100 and causing $2 billion in damages.
“We’re already involved in developing plans for the two conventions of Texas, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and the Baptist General Convention of Texas,” said Mickey Caison, director of operations at the Southern Baptist disaster operations center at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Ga. “In fact, our folks are already feeding at evacuation centers in Texas,” in San Antonio (Kelly Air Force Base and Brookhill Baptist Church), Laredo and the Bryan/College Station areas.
The American Red Cross requested that Southern Baptists be prepared to provide up to a total of 500,000 meals per day, while the Salvation Army requested another 70,000 meals.
Eleven feeding units already have been activated for Texas and even more were expected to be put on alert or standby following Ike’s landfall.