Philip Howard, 75, stood at his front door and watched as a wall of water from Pamlico Sound rushed down the road toward his house on Ocracoke Island. “The water just kept rising higher and higher and higher, and I thought if it breaches the top points of my fence then I’m going to have…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Congressional Delegation Visits Emergency Field Hospital in the Bahamas
Samaritan’s Purse continues serving hurting families one month after Hurricane Dorian’s devastating strike on the Bahamas. Our mobile Emergency Field Hospital in Freeport on Grand Bahama remains up and running as our team of medical specialists provides quality care for patients in desperate need. We have seen more than 2,700 patients since the hospital opened…
50 Years of Ministry
Rebuilding Homes for 5,000 Families After Hurricane Mitch
Hurricane Mitch was the worst storm of the 20th century in the western hemisphere, killing over 11,000 people in Honduras and Nicaragua in 1998. The late-October storm destroyed or damaged more than 80,000 houses in Honduras. Samaritan’s Purse launched the largest construction project in our history and in the four years following the storm, we…
50 Years of Ministry
U.S. Disaster Relief Begins—and Keeps Growing
Volunteers in orange T-shirts running chainsaws and tarping roofs have become icons of the U.S. Disaster Relief projects of Samaritan’s Purse. Yet it took many years for this aspect of the ministry to develop. The first U.S. Disaster Relief Unit was a converted tractor-trailer that deployed for the first time in 1998 to help victims…
50 Years of Ministry
Responding in the Aftermath of Devastating Disasters in Haiti
Samaritan’s Purse mounted a massive, multi-level response and delivered tons of emergency food and supplies after a fierce 7.0 earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, 2010. The impact was catastrophic for the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. About 250,000 people were killed, and more than a million Haitians were left homeless. Our medical and…
Volunteers Bring Unexpected Blessings After Alabama Hurricane
Just one look into her eyes and a story quickly unfolded. A story woven together with fear, panic, and absolute confusion that left little hope for resolution. Deborah Nelson could see in her mother’s eyes that a storm still lingered, even in the days following Hurricane Sally’s brutal punch to Baldwin County, Alabama. Her mother…
Edward Graham Volunteers in Louisiana with Team Patriot
Edward Graham traveled this week to southwest Louisiana to encourage Samaritan’s Purse teams as they come alongside hurting homeowners. Many communities in the Bayou State are still struggling to recover after powerful hurricanes pummeled the area in recent months. Hurricane Delta slammed ashore as a Category 2 storm in early October and hit just a…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Louisiana Homeowner Grateful for God’s Grace
Cary Castile wasn’t expecting to be displaced for weeks when he evacuated from Louisiana to Texas ahead of Hurricane Laura in August 2020. And, when he did return to his Lake Charles home, he said the widespread devastation broke his heart. “Almost the entire city was damaged. The power lines were down. It was a…
Construction Projects
‘The Happiest Day of My Life’
Leticia Jaimes wiped away tears as she walked through her new home for the first time. She paused in the living room, overwhelmed, and fell into the embrace of her mother, Elena. Mother and daughter hugged and cried together, knowing that this day would mark the beginning of many new family memories. “For years, we…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Team Patriot Volunteers Help a Fellow Veteran in Louisiana
Residents of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a working-class town of nearly 78,000 people, are weather weary. They have seen their city ravaged by two hurricanes, crippled by an ice storm, and inundated by floodwaters—all within the past nine months. First, Hurricane Laura, a Category 4 storm, roared into Lake Charles in late August. It was the…
