Powerful winds and torrential downpours sent Tran’s house sliding down a nearby mountainside in northern Vietnam. If the 78-year-old hadn’t fled, she would likely be among the more than 250 dead in the wake of Typhoon Yagi. Just days after, Samaritan’s Purse staff were wading through flooded streets and neighborhoods checking on families and distributing…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Responding in Charlotte County After Hurricane Milton’s Rumble Through Florida
Milton unleashed torrential rain and ferocious winds across Florida after making landfall Wednesday evening, Oct. 9, near Siesta Key, south of Sarasota. The deadly and powerful storm, which entered the state as a Category 3 hurricane and left as a Category 1 on Thursday morning, spawned tornadoes and caused severe flooding. The Tampa area, spared…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Hope in the Aftermath of Typhoon Yagi
Samaritan’s Purse has distributed relief supplies to thousands of families in northern Vietnam after Typhoon Yagi decimated the region in early September. Our DC-8 and 757 aircraft transported over 80,000 pounds of aid to the Southeast Asian country from our hangar in Greensboro, North Carolina, soon after floodwaters subsided. Working through our local partners in…
Samaritan’s Purse Delivers Thanksgiving Meals in Western North Carolina
Felicia Honeycutt was miles from home at work when the worst of Hurricane Helene hit her community. It took three days for her to get home where she cares for an ailing husband in the Big Creek community of Yancey County, North Carolina. As residents enter Thanksgiving, now, more than two months into an ongoing…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Disaster Relief Volunteers Urged to Boldly Share the Gospel of Christ
Thick, black smoke was moving in rapidly. Pastor Erik Naylor of Maui, Hawaii, could hardly see more than a few feet in front of him, and he felt the heat as homes around him started to catch on fire. But when he and a neighbor looked across the street, they saw that the Lahaina Baptist…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Secretary Scott Turner Sees Ongoing Response to Hurricane Helene
Scott Turner, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, joined Samaritan’s Purse staff and volunteers in North Carolina on March 11 to see our continued Hurricane Helene relief efforts. Secretary Turner visited homeowners in Buncombe County (Asheville area) who are still suffering from the storm’s catastrophic strike. “We’re here to learn, to…
Crisis & Disaster Response
Bridging the Gap in the Wake of Hurricane Helene
Hurricane Helene damaged the bridge that Tina Palmer used every day to get to her Deep Gap, North Carolina, home on the other side of a creek. Since the September 2024 storm, she has been afraid to even walk over the faltering structure, much less drive across it. Samaritan’s Purse U.S. Disaster Relief recently came…
Crisis & Disaster Response
First Mobile Homes Given to Hurting Families After Helene
Lidia Gomez escaped with her family as floodwaters, mud, and debris filled their Buncombe County, North Carolina, community last September. When they returned in the wake of Helene’s destruction, their mobile home was unrecognizable—filled with water and pierced by a tree that had crashed through the roof. In the following days, the home became filled…
Crisis & Disaster Response
A Place to Call Home
The scars on Howard’s cheek and eyebrow still bear witness to the terror and pain of the morning Hurricane Helene struck. Those reminders will not soon fade, but, now, he and his family have a new marker of God’s faithfulness and grace on their lives: a mobile home provided by Samaritan’s Purse. On Tuesday, June…
Operation Christmas Child
Caring for Grenada a Year After Beryl
Last summer, Hurricane Beryl ripped through the Windward Islands as a Category 4 storm. The tiny island of Carriacou—20 miles northeast of mainland Grenada and home to nearly 10,000 people—received the brunt of Beryl’s fury. Sustained winds of 150 miles per hour thrashed its shores and whipped through its rolling hills ripping roofs off houses…
