Mormon church warehouse aids evacuees

Diapers, baby formula and water headed to Alabama from the Tucker warehouse earlier this week. Chain saws, generators and cleaning supplies left Tuesday afternoon, bound for South Carolina.

The supplies are destined for evacuees who fled as Hurricane Gustav lashed Louisiana and for those in the path of Tropical Storm Hanna as it threatens the Eastern Seaboard. Two tractor-trailers already have gone, and at least one more will be filled and dispatched this week from the central storehouse of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“When we need to get these things out, we’re ready, because we do it all the time,” said Sandy Reed, a Mormon who works as a volunteer at the DeKalb County storehouse with her husband, Gary.

Faith-based groups have long been key players in Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, which coordinates relief efforts.

The Mormons’ 31,000-square-foot megawarehouse in Tucker often is called on for help when hurricanes or tornadoes batter the Eastern United States.

The warehouse uses mostly volunteers to help coordinate the more than 300 products that are on hand for disasters — everything from canned food prepared in bulk by the church to light bulbs to cleaning kits of bleach, brushes and gloves.

“Anything we can think of that would helpful in a disaster — tents, stocking caps, hammers — we have it ready to go,” Gary Reed said.

The church received a call from Birmingham earlier this week. The city’s civic center was unprepared for the number of people fleeing Gustav and needed baby supplies. Volunteers loaded up a truck with more than 2,000 hygiene kits, baby formula and other requests and had it on the road within 24 hours.

It was the 20th humanitarian relief project for the warehouse so far this year, including handing out more than 10,000 tarps during the Georgia tornadoes last spring.

On Tuesday, about $33,000 worth of emergency supplies were packed into a truck and sent to Columbia. The pallets of food, generators and cleansers will be distributed as needed once Hanna makes landfall, said John Hopkins, field manager for the storehouse.