LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Clearly, it's going to be a long road to recovery for those dealing with Hurricane Ida's aftermath.
Organizations here in Arkansas are getting ready to do whatever they can to help our neighbors down south.
Brent Lewis, the Sheep Dog Central Arkansas Chapter commander, said these disaster relief missions not only mean a lot to the people they're helping but also their own members.
"If we can come in and just help establish a little bit of normalcy back, help give them that one small ray of light, then we've done something," he said.
While people's lives have been turned upside down across Louisiana, central Arkansas groups are gearing up to help our neighbors.
Groups like Arkansas Baptist State Convention, where Randy Garrett is the Disaster Relief Director.
"We'll probably have a footprint down there about 30 square miles and anything that happens, that needs to be done in that area, we'll take care of," he said.
Both Sheep Dog Impact Assistance and Arkansas Baptist State Convention aren't strangers to grabbing their supplies and their people when disasters happen.
"We know we cannot make them whole in the time that we're there, but if we can get them some steps forward. That's what we have done," Lewis said.
"It's amazing. The look on their faces when we show up," Garrett said.
Both groups will see that look of relief in the coming days.
According to Lewis, Sheep Dog will deploy over 30 members to Houma, Louisiana on Wednesday, Sept. 1.
"We've already been dividing up into teams. Chainsaw teams versus roofing teams and stuff like that," he said.
Arkansas Baptist State Convention Disaster Relief will deploy 15 members to Hammond on Wednesday too.
Garrett believes they'll have over 100 volunteers with them by the following week.
"We will provide the meals, the feeding, the recovery work; whether it be chainsaw or flood recovery," he said.
While all the members get ready for what they could see when they arrive, the ones that have memories of disaster recoveries are thinking back to what they saw 16 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina devastated this same state.
"It's gonna be exactly the same. It's gonna be a lot of tree damage, there's going to be a lot of flooding, there's going to be a lot of displaced people," Garrett said.
"I think that we have learned a lot, as a nation, on handling disasters," Lewis said.
Sheep Dog will be sending another group of volunteers on Tuesday, Sept. 7.
You can help out by donating here to Sheep Dog and here to Arkansas Baptist State Convention.