{"id":6448,"date":"2022-08-06T19:36:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-06T19:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/?p=6448"},"modified":"2025-02-26T21:27:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T21:27:58","slug":"voices-from-a-salvation-army-flood-disaster-st-louis-recovery-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/2022\/08\/06\/voices-from-a-salvation-army-flood-disaster-st-louis-recovery-site\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices from a Salvation Army Flood Disaster St. Louis Recovery Site"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

St. Louis, Mo. – <\/strong>Many different voices emerge where The Salvation Army is hard at work in the field, helping flood recovery efforts this week in University City and North County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteers distribute food and water by the hundreds of servings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social services workers hear the stories of flood victims and provide them with resources to buy home supplies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organizations hand out supplies to support the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flood survivors tell their individual stories about their ordeals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an organization, we obviously want to let people know that we care. Let people know that there is love and compassion that exist,\u201d said Sara White, Disaster Recovery Services Coordinator. \u201cWe want to make sure that individuals in the community know that, when something of this magnitude happens, there are people in their organizations that have the compassion, the empathy to be able to say, \u2018We\u2019re going to show up for you.\u2019 This is what community does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White worked with a staff of six social services workers taking cases from a line of benefits seekers Thursday at the third multi-agency resource center (MARC) this week that The Salvation Army Midland Division has assisted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Record flooding hit the St. Louis area the week of July 26 and led to significant property damage around the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Salvation Army workers stayed hours after the doors closed on Thursday\u2019s MARC to make sure as many people possible were helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard a lot of stories \u2013 yesterday where one lady was sleeping in her car because she didn\u2019t have anywhere to go,\u201d said Claudia Reed, regional emergency social services coordinator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think right now, the Red Cross is going out and looking at the outside damage of homes,\u201d Reed said. \u201cThey\u2019re not even going inside the homes because there are too many people. We determined that we\u2019re going to work with everybody that comes out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cynthia Badie-Beard came to the Centennial Commons building, where the MARC was held, to exercise on Thursday afternoon and inadvertently became a Salvation Army volunteer, putting food in the hands of hungry people, signing in individuals for processing, and wanting to return to work on another day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI live in U City, not too far from here,\u201d Badie-Beard said. \u201cI come here to work out. The man from the Salvation Army said, \u2018Are you here to volunteer?\u2019 I said, \u2018No, I came to work out.\u2019 He let me in to the parking lot. Something in his voice. I said, \u2018Do you need volunteers?\u2019 He said, \u2018Yes,\u2019 and introduced me to [incident commander] Gretchen Luke. Here I am!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badie-Beard said of the experience, \u201cIt\u2019s been very sad. Very sad to see the families and know that some people had lost everything makes me know how fortunate I am. I\u2019m going to talk to Gretchen. She doesn\u2019t know it yet, but I want to volunteer for The Salvation Army.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a separate distribution spot for flood relief supplies, where The Salvation Army gave out a flood kit, with many home-cleaning supplies. Other businesses and organizations from around the community also lined up to help those affected by the flood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAction St. Louis and Black Men Build made the call to come out here because we saw our communities, North County, getting flooded and people not getting the resources that they needed,\u201d said Action St. Louis organizer Kennard Williams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Action St. Louis and Black Men Build distributed cases of bottled water to cars on the humid day with a heat index in the 90s. While many people had their basements flooded, Williams said damage for people went beyond that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are some people who had their entire apartment unit or building, the whole first floor, submerged under water,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were the flood survivors onsite to receive supplies and assistance \u2013 their presence being the reason everyone else was there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some survivors teared up easily, while others delivered their story with steely resolution. Both faced roads ahead of recovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was actually on the prayer line. I get on there every morning,\u201d said Denise, whose basement was flooded, when she found out about the high waters in her neighborhood. \u201cMy daughter, we call in. I heard someone say I\u2019m not going to work today because U City is flooded. I\u2019ve been in U City for 41 years. U City don\u2019t flood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denise continued, \u201cI got up and went to look at the window. Waters were up to the doors and stuff on the car. It dawned on me later. Somebody said, \u2018Did you check your basement?\u2019 When I opened up the basement door, I was like, \u2018Oh boy.\u2019 I\u2019ve got my kids\u2019 graduation stuff down there and grandkids. All of their stuff was stored in plastic tubs. The water was evidently so forceful it knocked them over and filled them with water. Everything, caps, gowns, had to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same supply distribution spot, Larica Taylor had relief and appreciation in her voice after receiving help from the organizations onsite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Salvation Army has been everywhere,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been up at the school, giving out items to clean the house. Then there were at Heman Park to help with the gift cards to help families go buy items for the house. I appreciate the Salvation Army so much, and I am so thankful for what they\u2019ve done today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicholas White<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Louis, Mo. – Many different voices emerge where The Salvation Army is hard at work in the field, helping flood recovery efforts this week in University City and North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":6449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[100,176,157],"class_list":["post-6448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-response","tag-flooding","tag-marc","tag-missouri"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/885c38ddaa95d1312016d3b0740898dd.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6448\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salarmyeds.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}