Disaster Relief in Southern California

For those of you who don't already know, the Southern Baptist Convention is the nation's third largest disaster relief organization. Teams are currently meeting vital needs of those impacted by fires in southern California. Here's the Baptist Press article below. If you want to donate to the southern California efforts, you can do so by clicking here.

Baptist relief units already serving victims of devastating wildfires burning in So. California

Oct. 23, 2007

By Mickey Noah
Baptist Press

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. (BP) – North American Mission Board missionary Dan Cookson’s San Diego home is safe for now, but the out-of-control wildfires blackening Southern California came too close for comfort.

“We’re fine for now and our home is okay,” said Cookson, the day after he, wife Tammy and two children were forced to evacuate the home they’ve shared since 2002. They spent Monday (Oct. 22) night in the local Vision San Diego office.

Cookson is a church starting strategist at Vision San Diego, where his wife also works.

“A friend called about 10 p.m. last night to say he was looking at our house and it was still standing,” Cookson said. “He was traveling around taking pictures for Baptist Press and sneaked into our neighborhood to see if our house was okay.

“We’ll try to go back this morning to change clothes, take showers and see about the air quality. If it all seems okay, then I guess we’ll stay at home. We’ll have to see if they will even let us back in or not.”

Cookson said he feels confident that his home will survive the fires because it is constructed of stucco and cement roofing tiles. Wood structures with cedar shake roofs are far more vulnerable, he explained.

North American Mission Board president Geoff Hammond pledged the agency’s assistance and asked Southern Baptists to be in prayer.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the residents of California as they endure this tragic fire and the devastation it’s caused,” Hammond said. “Please be in prayer as well for the local churches as they minister and the Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers who are being activated.”

Don Hargis, men’s ministry specialist for the California Southern Baptist Convention and state disaster relief coordinator, said three kitchen units have been set up at First Baptist Church, Newhall, Calif., in north Los Angeles County, and cooking is already under way there.

Two feeding units at Bethel Southern Baptist Church in Escondido, and First Baptist Church of Mira Mesa -- close to an evacuation center at Mira Mesa High School – have also been deployed. A shower unit is also headed to the Escondido site.

“But both of these sites may have to be evacuated, so now we’re in a state of flux,” Hargis said. “We’re looking for a new place to deploy them.”

Working with Mickey Caison, NAMB’s director for disaster relief and adult volunteer mobilization, Hargis said plans call for an “incident command center” to be established in the Riverside area, located in the center of the 25 fires which have torched about 270,000 acres between the 130-mile stretch from Malibu south to San Diego, and 70 miles eastward into the California mountains.

“Four years ago, we had another fire that destroyed a million acres and 3,000 homes,” Hargis said. “That took six months to clean up, so we expect the same length of time for these fires.”

About 100 disaster relief volunteers have been mobilized so far, primarily to cook and serve food to firefighters and victims.

“We’ll be mobilizing a lot more volunteers before we’re through,” Hargis said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the wind-fueled fires had destroyed about 900 homes and businesses in Southern California by the end of the second day. More than 500,000 people in San Diego County alone – like the Cooksons -- were told to evacuate.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called the fires “a tragic time for California,” and has declared a state of emergency in seven counties.