In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina became an extremely powerful hurricane that caused enormous destruction and significant loss of life. It was the costliest hurricane to ever hit the United States, surpassing the record previously held by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. In addition, Katrina is one of the five deadliest hurricanes to ever strike the United States. In all, Hurricane Katrina was responsible for 1,833 fatalities and approximately $108 billion in damage (un-adjusted 2005 dollars).
On Aug. 23, a tropical depression formed over the southeastern Bahamas, becoming Tropical Storm Katrina on Aug. 24 as it moved into the central Bahamas. The storm continued to track west while gradually intensifying and made its initial landfall along the southeast Florida coast on Aug. 25 as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 80 mph. After moving west across south Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina intensified rapidly and attained Category 5 status (with peak sustained winds of 175 mph) as it moved northwest on Aug. 28. Katrina weakened to a Category 3 before making landfall on Aug. 29 along the northern Gulf Coast, first in southeast La. (sustained winds: 125 mph) and then made landfall once more along the Mississippi Gulf Coast (sustained winds: 120 mph). Katrina finally weakened below hurricane intensity late on Aug. 29 over east central Mississippi.
The damage and loss of life inflicted by this massive hurricane in Louisiana and Mississippi was staggering with significant effects extending into Alabama and the western Florida panhandle. Katrina was one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history.
While approaching the Gulf Coast on Sun., Aug. 28, the storm turned to the north toward southeastern Louisiana. The loss of life and property damage was heightened by breaks in the levees that separate New Orleans from Lake Pontchartrain. At least 80 percent of New Orleans was under flood waters on Aug. 31.
“Less than a month after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast region, another even-more-powerful storm—Hurricane Rita—struck the area. Rita was the most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Gulf of Mexico, surpassing Katrina, and the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. Part of the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included three of the top 10 most intense Atlantic hurricanes ever recorded (along with No. 1 Wilma and No. 7 Katrina), Rita was the 17th named storm, 10th hurricane, and fifth major hurricane of the 2005 season.
“Rita formed near The Bahamas from a tropical wave on Sept. 18, 2005 that originally developed off the coast of West Africa. It moved westward, and after passing through the Florida Straits, entered an environment of abnormally warm waters. Moving west-northwest, Rita rapidly intensified to reach peak winds of 180 mph, achieving Category 5 status on Sept. 21. However, it weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall in Johnson’s Bayou, La., between Sabine Pass, Texas and Holly Beach, La., with winds of 115 mph. Rapidly weakening over land, Rita degenerated into a large low-pressure area over the lower Mississippi Valley by Sept. 26.
“In Louisiana, Rita’s storm surge inundated low-lying communities along the entire coast, worsening effects caused by Hurricane Katrina less than a month prior, such as topping the hastily-repaired Katrina-damaged levees at New Orleans. Parishes in Southwest Louisiana and counties in Southeast Texas where Rita made landfall suffered severe to catastrophic flooding and wind damage. According to an Oct. 25, 2005 Disaster Center report, 4,526 single-family dwellings were destroyed in Orange and Jefferson counties located in Southeast Texas.
“Major damage was sustained by 14,256 additional single-family dwellings, and another 26,211 single-family dwellings received minor damage. Mobile homes and apartments also sustained significant damage or were destroyed. In all, nine Texas counties and five Louisiana Parishes were declared disaster areas after the storm. Electric service was disrupted in some areas of both Texas and Louisiana for several weeks. Texas had the highest total of deaths from the hurricane, where 113 fatalities were reported, 107 of which were associated with the evacuation of the Houston metropolitan area.
“After Katrina stormed ashore, the National Guard was called in to help with evacuations. Thousands of people sought refuge in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Superdome, which became overwhelmed. It was one of the largest diasporas of a population since the Great Depression, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). According to The Data Center, an independent research organization in New Orleans, the storm displaced more than 1 million people in the Gulf Coast region.”
After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry’s office asked the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma (BGCO, now Oklahoma Baptists) officials to prepare the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center near Davis to receive as many as 3,000 evacuees for an extended stay.
Hundreds of individuals and churches responded to prepare the campgrounds for guests. Federal officials eventually decided not to send the evacuees, but, as a result, the State Department of Emergency Management saw how well Oklahoma Baptists could respond, and assured the BGCO that it would be on the front line if a similar need ever occurred again.
Oklahoma Baptists made a major impact on the hurricane-stricken areas by serving 12,244,176 meals, delivering 18 trailer and five semi loads of resources, completing 15,422 chainsaw and mud-out jobs, volunteering 77 office days, providing 86,027 showers, doing 21,278 loads of laundry, and purifying 21,595 gallons of water. Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) disaster relief totals also were unparalleled, with 14 million meals prepared in the hurricane zone, and more than 16,000 homeowners receiving chainsaw and mud-out assistance.
Oklahoma Baptist churches and individuals gave more money than ever before, almost $2 million, to Disaster Relief ministry in 2005. Because administrative costs are covered by Cooperative Program funds, 100 percent of the gifts provided direct relief to the individuals and churches impacted by the disasters.
Hurricane Katrina: An ‘American tsunami’
As then-BGCO Disaster Relief Director Sam Porter watched radar images of Hurricane Katrina on television as it approached the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, memories of tsunami-stricken Southeast Asia about eight months earlier flooded his mind.
“As I saw it happening, I couldn’t help but believe that a storm surge of 20-40 feet would be disastrous,” he said. “That was exactly the amount of water that hit Indonesia in December. The difference is we didn’t have a 9.0 magnitude earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico like what occurred in the Indian Ocean, but then Southeast Asia didn’t have sustained winds exceeding 140 miles per hour for several hours like Katrina produced, either.”
Porter shuddered as he spoke, remembering the sights, sounds and smells of death and destruction he witnessed in Banda, Aceh, Indonesia in early January.
“This (Katrina) is an American tsunami,” he stressed. “This is very similar to what happened in Indonesia. All over the coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi, there’s nothing left but the concrete slabs of homes and businesses, and in some places, the slabs have been torn up because of the huge column of water. You can tell the land mass has backed up. Katrina moved what used to be the coast several yards, maybe several hundred yards, in places.”
Similarly, one full kilometer (.6-mile) of land disappeared at the northern tip of Banda, Aceh when the tsunami hit.
Porter moved quickly over the weekend of Aug. 27-28 as Katrina approached New Orleans and environs to assemble feeding and chainsaw teams to respond immediately after the storm hit land. A 21-person feeding crew from the Oklahoma City area left for a staging area in Marshall, Texas on Aug. 29, followed by a 17-person chainsaw team from Bartlesville the next day. The Oklahomans were assigned to go to Florida Boulevard Baptist Church of Baton Rouge to set up operations.
Disaster Relief chaplains were called up by BGCO chaplaincy specialist Paul Bettis to accompany the teams in Louisiana. A total of 41 chaplains eventually ministered in the area.
The Oklahoma kitchen was operational the evening of Aug. 30, and volunteers awoke early on Aug. 31 to begin preparing lunch for that day. The Oklahoma kitchen arrived on site prepared to hit the road running with enough supplies packed into two semis to prepare approximately 35,000 meals.
“Local officials asked us to be ready to cook 20,000-30,000 meals per day,” Porter said. “We’ll prepare thousands of meals that will be trucked to the refugee shelters and will feed several thousand people in lines at the church, also.”
Tens of thousands of displaced residents of New Orleans had gathered at sites in Baton Rouge, including Istrouma Baptist Church, and in Lafayette, La., where the 13,500-seat Cajundome on the campus of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette had been readied as a refugee center. On Aug. 31, officials in Houston, Texas prepared the Astrodome to house almost 25,000 storm refugees.
Because damage was relatively minor in Baton Rouge, the Oklahoma chainsaw team relocated on Aug. 31 to Covington, La., north across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans, where it was to meet up with the No. 1 feeding unit from Louisiana. Porter said the huge number of displaced persons, estimated as high as 2 million by some officials, would provide an opportunity for area churches to reach out.
Porter said the damage done by Katrina already had topped that caused by the previous fall’s onslaught of hurricanes which sliced through Florida and the Eastern Seaboard.
700 attend disaster relief training Oct. 1, 2005
In the wake of the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast, the OSBDR volunteer rolls began to swell. Approximately 700 people showed up for a statewide disaster relief orientation at Henderson Hills Baptist Church of Edmond on Oct. 1, 2005, effectively doubling the number of trained volunteers registered with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
The training day included a basic introduction to disaster relief led by Porter and instruction in several specialized areas, including feeding, maintenance, inventory control, chainsaw operation, childcare, shower/laundry trailer, water purification and medical.
As of Oct. 5, 30 state conventions had responded to the aftermath of Katrina and Rita. The total number of units activated was 342. Volunteer Days totaled 64,986, with 6,087,549 meals prepared. Chainsaw/recovery units had competed 7,022 jobs, and 37,920 showers had been provided, 7,568 loads of laundry done, 2,460 messages sent, and 5,391 children cared for. Oklahoma had feeding, chainsaw and shower units serving at Belle Chasse, La., located on the outskirts of New Orleans.
OSBDR crews combined their operations, moving from Florida Boulevard Baptist Church of Baton Rouge, La., to First Baptist Church of Belle Chasse on Sept. 13. The Oklahoma feeding and chainsaw recovery teams were reunited for the first time since they were the first teams to set up operation after Katrina roared through the Gulf coast area on Aug. 29. The chainsaw team had been working in Covington, La.
Oklahoma’s No. 1 feeding unit had prepared a total of about 64,000 meals for hurricane and flood victims as of Sept. 8, according to Dean Kiser of Arcadia, the Blue Cap in charge of the Oklahoma City-area crew in operation at Florida Boulevard Baptist Church. The kitchen eventually prepared a total of 71,203 meals while in Baton Rouge.
The Oklahoma kitchen was the first disaster relief kitchen to be mobilized into the immediate New Orleans area. Belle Chasse is located on the southeast edge of New Orleans, on the west bank of the Mississippi River. The feeding and chainsaw teams were joined in Belle Chasse by a shower trailer constructed by volunteers from First Baptist Church of Chandler.
“Officials had been feeding about 3,000 people in that area using MREs (Meals Ready to Eat),” Porter said. “I know once the word gets out that hot meals are being cooked, the number of meals our kitchen serves each day will probably double at least.”
Porter was asked by Southern Baptist Convention disaster relief coordinators to activate another shower trailer—actually a converted mobile home—on Sept. 14 to serve at First Baptist Church of Slidell, La. The trailer contained 10 shower stalls and a washer and dryer for laundry services.
Then-BGCO Finance Team leader Kerry Russell reported that through Sept. 13, Oklahoma Southern Baptists had donated $430,000 to Hurricane Katrina relief. Affected evacuee families working through Oklahoma churches were eligible to receive up to $500 each from those donations. As of Sept. 27, more than $1.1 million had been donated for hurricane relief efforts by Oklahoma Southern Baptist churches and individuals, Russell said.
As a result, the BGCO wired relief funds to some of the affected areas. A total of $300,000 was sent to the Louisiana Baptist Convention; $150,000 to the Mississippi Baptist Convention and $100,000 to New Orleans Seminary.
“To say these conventions and our seminary are in dire straits after two hurricanes would be a great understatement,” said then-BGCO Executive Director-Treasurer Anthony Jordan. “We are grateful to Oklahoma Baptists to be able to help our brothers and sisters in need.”
For more information about Oklahoma Baptist DR, visit www.okdisasterhelp.org.
