See new photos, videos, and more from our relief work in Florida and the Caribbean. Please continue praying for victims of the storm.
Staff unloading the DC-8 in St. Martin.
UPDATE: Samaritan’s Purse is responding to Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico and Dominica. A disaster assistance response team and emergency relief supplies have arrived on each island.
Our first major distribution in Puerto Rico began on Sept. 27 and will continue until about 1,200 households have received heavy-duty shelter plastic, blankets, and hygiene kits. Today, another airlift will bring additional supplies. Over the coming days, more distributions will reach thousands more families.
Our logistics and supply team on Puerto Rico—deployed there for our international Hurricane Irma response—safely weathered Hurricane Maria. The airport there is now open for our flights to continue bringing aid across the Caribbean in the wake of these monster hurricanes. Read the latest article on Maria’s impact, especially in Dominica and Puerto Rico.
In Florida, our work continues at sites in the Keys and in Naples. We have completed work in Apopka and Ft. Myers. So far, nearly 500 volunteers have helped more than 400 homeowners across our four locations. Praise God that 17 people have repented and turned to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation.
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Samaritan’s Purse is bringing physical relief and the hope of the Gospel to families in Florida and the Caribbean as they struggle to recover after Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria.
“My prayers are with the many who have seen their homes and businesses devastated by Irma’s wind and water. They will now be facing an overwhelming clean-up,” said Samaritan’s Purse President Franklin Graham. “I pray especially for those who have lost loved ones in the storm.”
We continue to send relief supplies to hard-hit islands of the Caribbean, including St. Martin, Antigua, Barbuda, and the Turks and Caicos. Via multiple flights by our DC-8 plane, we have already brought food, blankets, shelter plastic, hygiene kits, and water purification units. In St. Martin, we are also installing equipment to convert seawater into clean drinking water, which has become an urgent need.
Our team also had the privilege of worshipping with Christians from the island of Barbuda, who have been displaced to Antigua. Despite their suffering, the believers sang with enthusiasm and joy in the Lord.
In Florida, our volunteers continue working in Key West and Naples. They are chainsawing trees, tarping roofs, and will soon perform mud-outs. We have two disaster relief units in the Sunshine State thanks to a partnership with Samaritan’s Purse-Canada, one of our international affiliate offices.
Millions of Floridians in the path of Hurricane Irma had to evacuate. Many homes and streets are still flooded.
Hurricane Irma smashed through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful Atlantic Ocean storms in recorded history. Then, on Sept. 10, the monster storm ripped through the Florida Keys as a Category 4 storm. It made a second landfall on Marco Island, near Naples on the Gulf Coast.
Please join us in praying for people in Florida and the Caribbean. Please also pray that many people in Florida and the Caribbean would come to faith in Jesus Christ.
