2005 - 09-02-05

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.

The original Witness staging area was set up
by the relief committee at the Fort
Lauderdale Assembly Hall, which is some 40
miles north of the main disaster zone around
Homestead. To relieve some of the pressure,
a primary staging area was established at
the Plant City Assembly Hall near Orlando,
about 250 miles northwest of the disaster
zone. Most relief materials were channeled
there for sorting and packing. The committee
ordered its needs from Plant City on a daily
basis, and huge tractor-trailers were used
to cover the five-hour drive down to Fort
Lauderdale.

In turn this staging station supplied food,
materials, water, generators, and other
needs to three Kingdom Halls that had been
repaired in the center of the disaster area.
There, capable Witnesses organized building
and clean-up crews to visit the hundreds of
homes that needed attention. Kitchens and
feeding lines were also opened on the
Kingdom Hall grounds, and anybody
was welcome to come for aid.
Even some of the soldiers enjoyed a meal and
were later observed dropping donations into
the contribution boxes.

For many of the homeless, alternative
accommodations were found in the homes of
Witnesses untouched by Andrew. Others stayed
in trailers lent or donated for that
purpose. After Hurricane Andrew, the
superbly-organized relief program of the
Witnesses was so well-known that some
business establishments and individuals who
were not Witnesses and who wanted to make
significant donations of relief supplies
turned these over to the Witnesses.