2005 - 09-02-05

It stated: “No one in Homestead is slamming
doors on the Jehovah’s Witnesses this
week—even if they still have doors to slam.
About 3,000 Witness volunteers from across
the country have converged on the disaster
area, first to help their own, then to help
others.... Any military organization
might envy the Witnesses’ precision,
discipline and efficiency.” In contrast, an
Air Force officer was quoted as saying about
the relief effort in another area: “All the
chiefs just want to be chiefs, but nobody
wants to get down and actually do the dirty
work.”

Jehovah's Witnesses have organized hundreds
of Regional Building Committees all over the
world to construct Kingdom Halls and large
Assembly Halls. Thus, they have trained
manpower ready to respond on a few hours’
notice.

During Hurricane Andrew, the Anheuser Busch
company donated a truckload of drinking
water. On arriving, the driver asked
officials where he should deliver the water.
He was told that the only ones who had
something organized were Jehovah's
Witnesses. In fact, within a week after
Andrew struck, some 70 tractor-trailer loads
of supplies had arrived at the Fort
Lauderdale Assembly Hall of Jehovah’s
Witnesses.

A volunteer there reported (I'm quoting from
the magazine here): “So we received a whole
truckload of drinking water. We immediately
included this among the other foodstuffs
that we were sending to the distribution
centers at the Kingdom Halls. It was shared
with the brothers and with the neighbors in
that area who were in need.”

In the beginning, city authorities were
sending non-Witness volunteers to the
Kingdom Halls, saying, ‘They are the only
ones who are properly organized.’ Eventually
the military moved in and began to set up
food and water relief centers and tent
cities.