Samaritan’s Purse Canada is sending trained Canadian staff to work alongside our U.S. colleagues in helping tens of thousands of people victimized by Hurricane Florence.


Three U.S.-based Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Relief Unit tractor trailers have been sent to North Carolina to help in the clean-up of badly damaged homes and neighborhoods. Hurricane Florence slammed into the southeastern U.S. last weekend—causing widespread flooding and damage, and least 18 deaths.


"In the wake of this storm, many are facing destruction and ruin,” says Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse. “We want them to know they don’t have to despair. God loves them, and He hasn't forgotten them."
Disaster Relief Units are outfitted with emergency equipment including generators, pumps, hand tools, and safety gear for volunteers. The units also serve as volunteer coordination and training centers, and are equipped with a self-contained office, communications system, and other supplies.
Some of Samaritan’s Purse Canada’s four Disaster Relief Units—two based in Calgary and two more in southern Ontario—played important roles in flood clean-ups in B.C. and New Brunswick earlier this year, and they are ready for deployment to hurricane-damaged areas of the Carolinas if needed.
In recent years, Samaritan’s Purse has assisted victims of a wide variety of natural disasters including flooding in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, and British Columbia, plus wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, and the B.C. interior.
Samaritan’s Purse has also helped victims of international disasters including hurricanes Harvey, Maria, and Irma in the U.S. and the Caribbean in 2017, Hurricane Matthew in Haiti in 2016, the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013, and the 2011 earthquake/tsunami in Japan.