Samaritan’s Purse Responding to Serve Homeowners Devastated by the Storm

Samaritan's Purse North American Ministries has three relief teams working in eastern North Carolina to help homeowners recover from terrible flooding caused by Florence's record-breaking downpours.

Our staff, along with disaster relief units and other equipment, left our North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, facilities on Sept. 15 headed for the coast. We have established a relief base in New Bern, North Carolina, and hundreds of volunteers are hard at work to help homeowners clean up and begin the recovery process. Thousands of houses have been damaged in this hard-hit, small town.

We've also established response locations in Wilmington y en Jacksonville, where volunteers started Sept. 18. In some parts of the Wilmington area, flood waters reached the roofs of residential homes.

Our volunteer teams are assisting homeowners with cleanup in a variety of ways—tarping roofs, clearing debris, chainsawing downed trees, and doing mud-outs. Our task is to serve as the hands and feet of Jesus to those in need in the hardest hit areas.

The National Weather Service described Florence as the “storm of a lifetime” for the Carolinas. The hurricane made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, on Friday, Sept. 14, packing heavy rain and sustained 90 mph winds—with gusts well over 100 mph. Over the next several days, a number of areas received 20 inches of rain or more, with at least one report topping 30 inches—making Florence the biggest rainmaker in North Carolina history. Rainfall reports in South Carolina also broke records for a single tropical event in that state.

Terrible flooding has been ongoing, and the threat continues over the next few days. Rivers are still cresting (as of Sept. 26) in certain parts of South Carolina.

Please join us in praying for all those affected by Florence.