When nearly 600 evacuees from Louisiana and Alabama neededshelter from Hurricane Ivan, Brookhaven area residents steppedforward to offer assistance.

“We had a lot of volunteers, more than we could use,” said LaylaEdwards, executive director of the Lincoln County chapter of theAmerican Red Cross. “We had a really, really good response fromspontaneous volunteers in the community. The calls just poured infrom people wanting to help.”

Edwards estimated the Red Cross office received between 300 and400 calls from individual volunteers in addition to state agenciesand other state and private organizations. Most of the areachurches called and offered their facilities as shelters and theircongregations as volunteer labor.

“We had more calls from people wanting to volunteer on this thanwe have had for anything else in my four years here,” she said.”The closest we’ve come in the past to matching this response waswhen the tornadoes hit Loyd Star.”

John Davis, director of the local office of the MississippiDepartment of Human Services, provided some much-needed assistance,Edwards said, and was one of the first to call. It was the firsttime the MDHS had assisted the Red Cross here in providing disasterrelief services.

“When he said he had 32 people at his disposal we could use itwas a big relief,” Edwards said, adding that she was still tryingto organize a volunteer force at the time. “He also helped with theorganization and by setting shifts at the shelters. He took a bigload off me.”

In all, Edwards said, more than 100 individual volunteers wereutilized in manning the shelters or by providing otherservices.

“And, of course, none of this could have been possible withoutthe assistance of the churches,” she said.

Five shelters were opened Tuesday and Wednesday to accommodate atotal of 599 evacuees, mostly from Louisiana and Alabama, who fledto Brookhaven. All were located at church facilities. Shelters wereestablished at Faith Presbyterian Church, Easthaven Baptist Church,First Baptist Church, Macedonia Baptist Church and Central BaptistChurch, she said.

Faith Presbyterian was the first to open when guests beganarriving around 1 p.m. Tuesday. It reached its maximum capacityearly Tuesday evening and Easthaven followed it. Both of thoseshelters reached their maximum capacity by early Wednesday,prompting the opening of the other three shelters.

At their peaks, Easthaven housed the most evacuees at 315followed by Faith Presbyterian at 150. First Baptist grew to 126evacuees before Thursday morning while Macedonia had 10 and Centraleight.

Local merchants and church groups donated the food and beveragessupplied by the shelters.

“We had a really good response from them,” Edwards said. “Thechurch groups and the local merchants provided all we needed tofeed the evacuees.”

In many cases, she said, church groups would have food at ashelter within an hour of its announced opening. Oftentimes, withinthe half-hour.

“That is very comforting to the evacuees,” Edwards said. “Itmeant a lot to them.”

The evacuees were all complimentary of their volunteerhosts.

“They’ve been very, very polite and have accommodated everyone,”said Constance Dillon of Mobile, who sheltered at EasthavenWednesday night.

Sam Murphy of Pearlington, another guest at Easthaven,agreed.

“The hospitality they have shown us and the kindness has beenvery good,” he said. “They made us feel welcome.”

Ronald and Nancy Root of Metairie, La., arrived early Tuesdayafternoon and were the first couple to took shelter at FaithPresbyterian when it opened. They said it didn’t matter thatnothing was prepared upon their arrival because they were justhappy to have a place to ride out the storm.

“They are very kind,” Nancy Root said. “We really appreciateeverything they are doing for us.”

It was a common sentiment among guests, who often thanked thevolunteers for their time and efforts.