When Disaster Strikes

Samaritan’s Purse Canada responds across Canada providing immediate relief to survivors of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and other disasters.

The devastation left in the wake of a disaster can quickly overwhelm the local response capacity. Outside resources and help are often crucial in enabling affected communities to recover and rebuild. Samaritan’s Purse provides immediate assistance through highly trained volunteer leadership partnering with local churches, emergency management, and regional authorities.

How We Respond

Samaritan’s Purse mobilizes its Disaster Relief Units (DRU), custom-built tractor-trailers, to impacted communities and pairs volunteers with trained leaders who equip and send them into the community to assist families with emergency clean-up and repairs. Our focus is on restoring homes and properties at no cost to allow families to safely return home following the disaster.

We responded to the needs of those who have been devastated by disasters following the example of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10 and keeping with Christ’s command to “go and do likewise.”

Samaritan’s Purse typically deploys one or more of three Disaster Relief Units when responding to disasters in Canada. They are tractor trailers outfitted with essential disaster recovery equipment including generators, pumps, hand tools, and safety gear for volunteers.

2019 Canadian Disaster Responses

Samaritan’s Purse Canadian Disaster Responses in 2019

Paddle Prairie, AB

Ottawa, ON

Renfrew County, ON

Gatineau, QC

Fredericton, NB

Prince Edward Island

2019 Quick Disaster Facts

After devastating the Bahamas as a Category 5 Hurricane, Dorian struck Atlantic Canada as a post-tropical storm on Sept. 7 and 8, 2019.

Dorian destroyed tens of thousands of trees across Atlantic Canada, toppling them onto homes, cars, yards, and roads.

With flooding in 2018 and 2019, many areas of New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec experienced back to back 1 in 100 year floods.

Along the Ottawa River in Ontario, water levels broke a 60-year record when they reached 113.68 meters above seas level—1 cm higher than the record set in 1960.

Homes flooded in 2019: 2,000 Ontario, 9,800 Quebec, 6,800 New Brunswick.

In April 2019, while helping homeowners in flooded Ottawa communities, Samaritan’s Purse teams were in nearby neighborhoods helping homeowners continue to clean up from six tornadoes that touched down in Sept. 2018.

In Alberta, the Chuckegg Creek fire burned more than 350,000 hectares of land and destroyed more than a dozen homes in the Paddle Prairie Metis Settlement.

Thank you for bringing hope to Canadian families in crisis