Our 6,000-soul town has been inundated with Hurricane Katrina evacuees.  We are still unsure how many we have in our community, although we saw over 75 out-of-state families at the bank yesterday.

Crossett, Arkansas is 360 miles from the Gulf Coast, just across the Louisiana border.  It’s a five or six hour drive from New Orleans or Biloxi under normal circumstances.

The people who came here have lost everything: their jobs, their homes, and even their loved ones.  Their whole world is underwater.  We are doing anything we can to help.

We are serving hot meals, and the local hospital opened a free clinic -- tetanus shots were a big item.  Some of our local pharmacists are also filling prescriptions for free. People have been so grateful for everything.

Hotels are full and people have run out of money to pay -- but they are being allowed to stay, and we are working on how to help the hotels in a fair manner.

The armory has opened as a temporary shelter, and people stayed there last night. It is not air conditioned, but thankfully it is cooling off at night and seems bearable enough to sleep.

Churches have responded and the whole town is working together.  With the donations to our community fund, we’ve been able to distribute over $4500 so far in aid -- mostly in the form of cash and gift certificates from local stores.

The people I talked with yesterday just wanted to share their stories.  There were whole families, sometimes totaling 13 or more, that all fled together.  All they have now is each other.  There were people who brought only two days’ change of clothing, who know they have nothing to go back to.

As we’ve learned from the news, the entire South is reeling from the influx of evacuees.  Hotels are full as far as Austin, Texas.  Churches, campgrounds, and other temporary shelters are bursting at the seams.

Even as the region comes together to help its neighbors, it is going to take much more than we are doing, and more resources than we have.  We are only putting a band-aid on a broken leg.  We hope that at least we are providing some solace for the time being.