Falls Creek evacuee-less -- Tales from the Quillpen

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Date Posted: 17:11:42 09/20/05 Tue
Author: Joan
Subject: Falls Creek evacuee-less

Plan to use Falls Creek to welcome �guests� swiftly put into motion
Tuesday, 20 September 2005
by Bob Nigh
Managing Editor
EDITOR�S NOTE: Oklahoma Southern Baptists responded in a huge way when the offer to accept Falls Creek as a center to house thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina was accepted by Gov. Brad Henry�s office. Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma Executive Director-Treasurer Anthony Jordan visited with the Baptist Messenger last week to outline how the response came together. Messenger: How exactly did the opportunity for Oklahoma Baptists to minister directly to Hurricane victims come about?
Jordan: I talked briefly on the phone with our disaster relief director Sam Porter, who was in Baton Rouge, La., the morning of Thursday, Sept. 1 and we prayed about the possibility of offering Falls Creek to house evacuees. Sam got a call at 2 p.m. that day from a Red Cross official in Tulsa asking if we could feed evacuees they were considering relocating to Tulsa. At that time, Sam offered the use of Falls Creek to the official, who then contacted the Governor�s office. The next morning, the Governor contacted me and asked if the offer was genuine. I told him yes, and he accepted our offer. Then, our staff at the Baptist Building was immediately called into action. God put His plan into motion in a little more than 24 hours.
Messenger: Then what happened?
Jordan: We asked our staff to call the churches who own cabins at Falls Creek to see if they�d be willing to let us use their cabin to house what we began calling our �Oklahoma guests.� We also asked them to provide hosts for their cabin, if possible, to greet their guests when they arrived, which we expected to happen Sept. 5, Labor Day.
Messenger: This all began on the Friday before Labor Day. Wasn�t it hard to make contact with the churches?
Jordan: It was no easy task, as you could imagine, but the Baptist Building staff was diligent in its task, and the response by our cabin owners was overwhelming. Before the weekend was over, all of the 130 cabin owners had agreed to welcome our guests to Falls Creek.
Messenger: Calling cabin owners wasn�t all that happened over the weekend, was it?
Jordan: Hardly. We held a press conference at the Baptist Building at 5 p.m., Saturday to get the word out that we were in the process of making the camp ready for folks. We also e-mailed an appeal to our directors of missions and churches for volunteers from our churches to help. The following day, about 10 of us met at the Capitol complex with officials of the Department of Public Safety (DPS), the OEM, the Red Cross and other agencies to begin putting the plan of operation together. That meeting lasted almost three hours, then we, as BGCO staff, convened at the Baptist Building and met for another two hours to fine tune our part of the plan. Meanwhile, a �buckets of blessings� campaign was launched at five Oklahoma City metro area churches, with Bethany, Council Road serving as a collection point for them. The buckets were designed to give our guests some comfort items, such as snacks and candy, toiletry items, and books and toys for the children.
Messenger: Were you encouraged by the number of volunteers who showed up at Falls Creek on Monday?
Jordan: Yes, it was awesome. By mid-day, we had more than 1,000 volunteers registered, and the DPS started telling additional people who showed up to go home because we had too many volunteers on campus. We also set up a link on our Web site through which volunteers could register. The total number of registered volunteers eventually exceeded 1,800.
Messenger: Volunteers didn�t just show up; they brought donations of food, clothing and other items with them as well, didn�t they?
Jordan: Boy, did they ever! Urgently needed supplies of bottled water, food and clothing and medical supplies came pouring in. In fact, our Falls Creek storage capacity eventually became overwhelmed and additional donations were sent to sites off campus.
Messenger: The amphitheater virtually became a department store, didn�t it?
Jordan: Yes. It was amazing as volunteers began going through clothing and shoes, tables became covered with piles of clean clothing folded neatly and sorted by gender and age group.
Messenger: What happened to the food and toiletry donations?
Jordan: They were taken to the Falls Creek grocery store located next to the office, and were sorted as well to make them ready to benefit our guests. Other items, such as the medical supplies, were taken to two cabins�Hobart, First and Purcell, First�which were hosting medical personnel.
Messenger: What was the plan to accomplish feeding 3,000 guests and volunteers at Falls Creek?
Jordan: Porter quickly called in disaster relief feeding trailers from Bryan and LeFlore associations and crews from those two areas, plus Sans Bois Association, to set up cooking/feeding operations. They had a well-organized, smoothly-running kitchen up and going by mid-day on Labor Day, and were ready to feed more than 5,000 people a day.
Messenger: What was your reaction when the decision was made to trim the volunteers to a skeleton crew on Tuesday and send most of them home in hopes of a call-back?
Jordan: We were disappointed, of course, because we were eagerly anticipating loving on our guests.
Messenger: Once the final decision to stand down came, a fully-prepared camp had to be �dismantled.� What�s going to happen to all of the supplies brought in?
Jordan: Oklahoma Baptists can rest assured that every item made ready to benefit our guests will be used. About 1,000 of the buckets of blessings already have been sent to Camp Gruber, where other evacuees are housed. The rest of the buckets will be sent to Belle Chasse, La., just outside New Orleans, where our disaster relief crews are now in operation.
All other items�bed linens, medical supplies, food items and clothing, etc.�will be either sent to hurricane victims at Camp Gruber or in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama or placed in a central warehouse set up by Volunteer Organizations Active in Disasters (VOAD) in Oklahoma City. Many of our churches across the state are hosting evacuees. Those churches will be able to contact that warehouse soon to get items to benefit those families they are helping. I assure you, nothing will go to waste.
Messenger: What is your overall reaction to how the operation to ready Falls Creek went?
Jordan: We are honored to have had this opportunity to serve the hurricane survivors, our state and our Savior. I am very grateful for the more than 1,800 volunteers who registered to help with the Falls Creek relief efforts. More than 5,000 buckets of blessings care packages were prepared by hand, and more 3,278 beds were made in less than 24 hours.
I also am very proud of our Baptist Building staff for their leadership in this effort. They did an incredible job.

from BaptistMessanger.com

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