Church Maintains Disaster Aid for Katrina, and now Rita While the Church has had a continuous flow of food, water, cots, tents, sleeping bags, tarps, generators, and volunteers into the Southeast in recent weeks, the spectrum of its assistance has simply been broadened with Hurricane Rita's visit. Nearly a month after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast region, a weakened, Category 3 Hurricane Rita hit parts of the region along the Texas-Louisiana border on the morning of Saturday, September 24. With maximum sustained winds of 120 mph, the storm caused extensive damage, but less destruction than was predicted. Residents and leaders alike attempted to take note from the lessons left behind by Hurricane Katrina and approximately 3 million residents from the Houston, Texas, area and western Louisiana fled out of the storm's path. Thousands of evacuees are expected to return home throughout the week. The Church's effort in Texas over the weekend focused on safety and assessment of damages. All members whose homes were in Rita's path are accounted for: safe and uninjured. All missionaries in the Houston and Louisiana areas were evacuated ahead of time. Nearly 1/3 of missionaries in the Houston East Mission will be temporarily displaced until they can return to their areas in Eastern Texas and Western Louisiana. The Orange and Beaumont Texas Stakes were the hardest hit and many of the members' homes experienced significant damage; it’s expected that members in those stakes will not be able to return to their homes for weeks. Neighboring stakes of the hardest-hit areas report that they are ready to assist with the cleanup effort. There are reports of minor storm damage in Rita’s path, but a full assessment of Orange and Beaumont Stakes is still underway. Storehouses were already loaded with emergency supplies and food, and semitrucks loaded with additional provisions from the Bishop's Central Storehouse in Salt Lake City were dispatched and a command center was set in anticipation of Rita. Emergency relief items were distributed throughout the weekend from the bishops' central storehouses in Houston and Dallas. Nearly 40 meetinghouses in throughout Texas and Louisiana were used as shelters for approximately 2,000 members and others. Bridge calls among priesthood leaders to conduct relief efforts are underway nightly, under the direction of Elder Stanley G. Ellis. At the same time as Rita is being confronted, the work in Mississippi and Louisiana is centered on getting people back into their homes. Hurricane Katrina victims will face moldy homes, rotten food, and unsalvageable possessions. In many cases reconstruction will be necessary. To ease the burden of returning home for Katrina victims, Church volunteers are assembling and shipping home clean-up kits in units of 10,000. One set of home-cleaning kits was assembled by Atlanta, Georgia, volunteers at the Bishop's Storehouse in Tucker, Georgia, with workers putting in 16-hour days. Another round of kits will be done in Tucker this coming weekend. At the same time, 20,000 kits are being gathered in Orlando, Florida. Each kit comprises, bleach, disinfectant soap, latex gloves, sponges, trash bags, a spry bottle, a measuring cup, rags, and scrub brushes. The kits are being distributed to the church's shelters throughout the region. Additionally, some of the kits will be donated to the American Red Cross. More than 8,000 members of the Church have volunteered in the past few weeks to help clear trees, and debris, as well as to help repair homes. This disaster relief effort is expected to continue through the year's end as the need persists. Additionally, the Church began dispensing food to grateful and relieved Hurricane Katrina evacuees last week at the Daphne Civic Center in Mobile, Alabama. The shelter is dependent upon food donations and the Church decided to help.