• Philip Burn

Salvation Army Staged For Deployment as Hurricane Harvey Makes Landfall

Dallas, Texas (August 25, 2017) – The Salvation Army in Texas is ready to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care to survivors and relief workers as Hurricane Harvey, upgraded to a category 4 hurricane, makes landfall Friday evening into early Saturday morning. Disaster units are staged and ready to serve, and additional resources from throughout the country are ready to mobilize and offer additional assistance as needed.

A total of 42 mobile kitchens – each with the capacity to serve an average of 1,500 meals per day – are headed to forward staging areas in Dallas and San Antonio in preparation for deployment. 10 of those units are from The Salvation Army in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Disaster response leadership teams will be positioned in San Antonio, Galveston/Texas City, Houston and Corpus Christi to coordinate the ongoing disaster response.

“We will be staging a supply of water, cleanup kits, food, and shelter supplies at our 100,000 square foot disaster warehouse in Arlington and we are hopeful that we can identify additional warehouse facilities close to the worst affected areas in the coming days,” said Alvin Migues, The Salvation Army Emergency Services Director for Texas. “We are grateful to our partners during times of disaster, like Americares who are providing bottled water, and the Midwest Food Bank who have four tractor trailers of food boxes headed for Texas.”

Salvation Army units throughout the state are working closely with local Emergency Operations Centers and community partners. Many have opened their doors as emergency shelters and others are supporting city and American Red Cross shelter operations with mass feeding. In Corpus Christi The Salvation Army provided 164 heater meals on Friday and have distributed 2,000 snacks and 1,200 bottles of water since Thursday at the FEMA dome and to evacuees boarding buses to San Antonio.

"The Salvation Army is already at work in many communities that find themselves in the path of the storm and has served survivors of every major national disaster since 1900," said Migues. "We are committed to serving the needs of those impacted as long as is necessary."

To make a financial donation to support the Hurricane Harvey relief efforts please go to www.helpsalvationarmy.org or call 1-800- SAL-ARMY.

For the latest information please go to www.disaster.salvationarmy.org and watch for regular updates on our social media pages at www.facebook.com/salvationarmytexas/ and www.twitter.com/salarmytx. To access photo and video resources related to The Salvation Army Hurricane Harvey relief efforts please go to www.salvationarmysouth.org/harvey.