This second DC-8 flight to Carriacou Island, Grenada, is transporting a 12-person medical team, a mobile field hospital, and additional relief supplies and personnel. Please continue to pray.
UPDATED July 4
A second DC-8 airlift bound for Carriacou Island departed Greensboro, North Carolina, in the early hours of Independence Day with an Emergency Field Hospital, an additional disaster response team and a 12-person medical team onboard, including doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and other personnel.
A second DC-8 airlift departed our hangar in Greensboro, North Carolina, bound for Carriacou Island in the early hours of Independence Day.
This will increase our capacity to provide non-surgical inpatient and outpatient medical services to the many suffering Carriacou communities, where homes and infrastructure were decimated within minutes of Hurricane Beryl’s landfall.
This second airlift also included additional supplies of shelter materials and water filtration in our continued rapid relief response started July 2 to storm-devastated areas of the southern Caribbean.
July 2: First DC-8 Airlift to Carriacou
Our initial airlift the morning of July 2 carried 13 Disaster Assistance Response Team staff and 24 tons of life-saving relief, including 600 rolls of heavy duty shelter tarping, thousands of solar lights, collapsible jerry cans, a desalination water unit to provide clean drinking water, and medical supplies for our mobile medical unit.
“Hurricane Beryl pummeled the Windward Islands, and left thousands of families in need of emergency relief,” said Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse. “We started building out pallets of cargo before the hurricane even made landfall and are now on the way with life-saving aid. Please join me in praying for the families who are in the path of this storm, and for our Samaritan’s Purse staff who will be serving them.”
July 1: Hurricane Beryl Landfall
Hurricane Beryl roared ashore as a Category 4 storm on the island nation of Grenada Monday morning, July 1, packing 150 mph winds and dangerous storm surge. The island communities of Grenada’s Carriacou Island were decimated and left under water. Many homes were destroyed and thousands of people are without electricity. At least two people were killed on Carriacou. The island nation of Barbados was also impacted by the onslaught of devastating winds.
Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) members boarded our DC-8 this morning en route to Grenada.
By late Monday, the storm had strengthened to a Category 5, with winds reaching 175 mph as it bears down on the central Caribbean, targeting Jamaica and southern Hispaniola, the island shared by Dominican Republic and Haiti.
As the hurricane continued its deadly and destructive path through the Caribbean, Samaritan’s Purse worked with local church partners to determine needs as we prepared for deployment to the region.
This is the first Atlantic hurricane of 2024 and the strongest storm in recorded history to pass through the Grenadines, a small island chain including Grenada and St. Lucia in the southern Caribbean’s Windward Islands.
Please pray for these many suffering communities, for our local church partners, and for our team as we begin to respond in Jesus’ Name.
