Our Response to the Flooding Disaster Across South Louisiana
Less than three weeks after nine tornadoes devastated South Louisiana communities, widespread flooding has now displaced many more. More than 12,000 homes across Louisiana have been impacted by the floods. Thank you for your support, thoughts and prayers for our neighbors in need.
How to help
Donate cash: We’ve received so many offers of help as South Louisiana residents pick up the pieces from this devastating flood. In an emergency like this, a monetary donation is the best, most efficient way to help underwrite our costs of procuring and delivering thousands of pounds of disaster supplies. Click HERE to make a monetary donation today.
Donate food food, water, emergency supplies and cleaning supplies: We are especially in need of cleaning supplies at this time. If you’d like to make a donation of non-perishable food, water, and/or other supplies, you can drop them off at our facility near New Orleans in the Elmwood Warehouse District area, or at our Lafayette facility. Here are the addresses: (Note — Although our Elmwood location has a New Orleans zip code, it’s in Elmwood near the Huey P.)
(map link) 700 Edwards Avenue, New Orleans, Louisiana 70123
(map link) 215 East Pinhook Road, Lafayette, Louisiana 70501
If you need assistance: Call our Benefits Helpline at 1-855-392-9338, Monday – Friday 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Many parishes across Louisiana have been included in the federal disaster declaration. To begin the application process with FEMA, call 1-800-621-3362.
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Here are some details of our response to the disaster so far:
Monday, March 21:
Second Harvest is providing food to Woodland Baptist Church of Hammond, which is sheltering and feeding 75 first responders.
Our partner organization Pentecostals of Vinton scheduled a delivery of USDA product from Second Harvest and will be picking up Tuesday. The folks at Pentacostals are feeding 400 individuals a day.
We are working with the Red Cross and Pentacostals of Vinton to set up a central location to accept food donations, including perishable goods.
Saturday, March 19:
Second Harvest delivered more than 8,000 pounds of supplies to Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana for distribution to partner organizations across the impacted area. Pentecostals of Vinton and other local organizations picked up food, water and supplies from this shipment to deliver to residents.
Friday, March 18
Today, Second Harvest partner organization Louisiana Baptist, serving Vinton, picked up 2,486 lbs of food to distribute meals to Calcasieu residents and first responders.
We have put together nearly 4,000 pounds of supplies for Catholic Charities in Bogalusa and YMCA Bogalusa, which include hygiene kits to give to residents in Bogalusa through Catholic Charities Crisis team. They will pick this up from our Elmwood warehouse on Saturday.
Additionally, we have a regular mobile pantry delivery on Saturday as well to Bogalusa.
We have scheduled a delivery to our partner agency Outreach Full Gospel in Franklinton – They will receive 8,400 pounds of supplies on Tuesday March 22.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief has arranged for additional disaster supplies to distribute in the Southwest, but the delivery is coming in from Texas, and has been hampered by the I-10 closure.
We have scheduled 26 pallets of disaster product to be delivered to our Lafayette warehouse on Monday and include water, snacks, cereal, Abbott Disaster boxes, and #10 peaches. That is a total of more than 31,000 pounds to be further distributed to hard-hit areas in Southwest Louisiana.
We’re proud to be a lifelong partner with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Here is a recap of some of their disaster-response work across the Northshore: http://www.ccano.org/uncategorized/northshore-relief-response-update/
We’d also like to extend a special thanks to members of our Feeding America network of food banks, lending support and sending supplies our way.
Thursday, March 17 – Report: More than 12,000 homes have been flooded across the state in this disaster. http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/northshore/flooding/86814745
Our thanks to the Church of Latter-Day Saints for a huge shipment of cleaning supplies and hygiene kits which arrived today.
The YMCA of Bogalusa picked up a load of supplies at our warehouse in Elmwood today, including cleaning supplies. We have reserved nearly 4,000 pounds for the YMCA to distribute, including cleaning supplies, hygiene kits, snacks, and baby supplies.
Louisiana Baptist in Hammond is a local organization supported by Second Harvest. They are providing food for 75 workers who are handling some of the mud clean outs in Tangipahoa Parish. They are providing 3 meals a day and snack for the workers. They will be applying for USDA product and some of our disaster product beginning of next week.
Our partner agency Pentecostals of Vinton is with the Baptist Association to set up shower facilities. The church is cooking meals for first responders and the community. Through a partnership with the Red Cross, Pentecostals of Vinton is providing clothing to residents in need.
The Carey Association in Lake Charles is working to connect with 70 local churches in the area, 12 of which are partner agencies of Second Harvest. This organization is also working with 2 churches in Calcasieu Parish which are feeding first responders.
Initial assessment: 14,00 homes were affected in the flood zone area near the Sabine River. Of those, 483 homes are without power. They have only identified 4 households that have flood insurance.
Wednesday, March 16: We have scheduled a delivery to Pearl River Church of the Nazarene- Pearl River, LA (St Tammany Parish) Delivery for Monday to include snacks, beverages, bread, and toiletries, around 3,000 pounds. We’re hearing that many residents served by this pantry are living in their cars.
Community Christian Concern of Slidell is a pantry we support year-round, and will receive their regular delivery from us this Friday to serve the community.
The Red Cross started a Mobile Kitchen in Franklinton at Trinity Baptist Church. They have capacity to provide 800-1,000 meals a day. We are working with The Red Cross to see if they need us to provide food for these Mobile Kitchens.
The Salvation Army has a mobile kitchen that has been distributing meals in Southwest Louisiana; we are in contact with them to see if we need to provide food for the kitchen.
We have scheduled a truck to arrive in Lake Charles Saturday morning, delivered to Catholic Charities. This truck will be hauling snacks, water, and canned peaches. Catholic Charities will then ensure these items are distributed to hard-hit locations in Vinton.
Tuesday, March 15:We delivered more than 10,000 pounds of food, water and cleaning supplies to local food pantries in Franklinton and Bush, for distribution to flood victims. We also provided the Red Cross with an additional order of 4,500+ pounds consisting of snacks, bread, and canned peaches to be sent to Washington Parish. Additionally, we also provided meals and disaster boxes for the Bogalusa Senior Center, which was hit hard during last week’s flooding.
Monday, March 14: Second Harvest provided the Red Cross with 7,284 MRE’s and 700 box lunches that were distributed in Washington Parish through the Red Cross Disaster Response trucks.
Friday March 11 – Sunday March 13: Following the flash flooding across the Northshore, Second Harvest immediately dispatched staff to the hardest-hit areas to ascertain the needs of residents in the impacted areas.
The week of March 7: When it became apparent that South Louisiana could face flooding rains, we activated our Disaster Response plan, monitoring the situation closely and making plans on how best to stage resources if any response were needed.
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What’s next: We will continue working with our partners in local disaster-response agencies, local food pantries, the Red Cross, Catholic Charities, Feeding America and many other organizations. Disaster response has been a core part of our mission for 30 years, and we are dedicated to helping as many people as possible in the days and weeks to come.
