BAHAMAS — Samaritan’s Purse made its first airlift of the Emergency Field Hospital to the Bahamas on September 5, at the request of the World Health Organization and the government of the Bahamas. Multiple flights will follow. A team of 16 staff members, including doctors and nurses, was on the flight to help set up the mobile hospital. The 40-bed facility will have an outpatient department and emergency room, equipped to serve up to 100 patients a day. There will be an operating room—with capacity for 10 surgeries per day—and an obstetrics ward with delivery room. On Sept. 4, more than 30 tons of emergency relief were sent to the Bahamas aboard Samaritan’s Purse’ DC-8 aircraft. More than a dozen disaster response team specialists were also onboard. Samaritan’s Purse now has more than 30 staff members on the ground in the Bahamas.

The first plane load left Greensboro, North Carolina, around 9 a.m. on Sept. 4 and arrived in Nassau where it was unloaded. Onboard were emergency shelter materials, household water filters, and two community filtration units that turn saltwater into drinking water.

In addition, Samaritan’s Purse staff members and three disaster relief units—tractor trailers stocked with tools and supplies—are already en route to coastal locations in the Carolinas. Volunteer teams will soon begin clearing debris, cutting trees, and tarping roofs in the wake of Hurricane Dorian, which continues to churn in the Atlantic as a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph. Rebuild work is already ongoing in Horry County, South Carolina, and New Bern, North Carolina, as a result of Hurricane Florence (2018).

Dorian is expected to menace the East Coast through Friday.

Samaritan’s Purse: International Crisis Response

Samaritan’s Purse stands ready to respond at a moment’s notice whenever and wherever disaster strikes. We specialize in meeting critical needs for victims of conflict, disaster, famine, and epidemics throughout the world, often working through ministry partners on the ground. We provide food, water, shelter, medicine, and other assistance in the Name of Jesus Christ.

To read more news on Disaster Relief on Missions Box, go here.