by Caroline Gabsewics
Staff Writer
Many emergency preparedness teams took a serious look at what could be done differently in emergency situations after the 2004 hurricane season and The Salvation Army was one of them.
As a result of recent past hurricane seasons, three new Salvation Army canteens have made their way to three different parts of Florida — and Jacksonville is one of them.
The canteens were delivered to Jacksonville, Panama City and Fort Myers — covering all coasts — in August. They are owned by the Florida Division of the Salvation Army.
“This has been in the works for a couple of years ... since 2004,” said Paul Stasi, director of Social Services of the Northeast Florida Area Command of The Salvation Army. “These were specially made for The Salvation Army.”
Stasi added that The Salvation Army purchased the canteens through a grant.
These three canteens are the largest of their kind, but Stasi said there are two 18-wheeler kitchens that are based at Division headquarters in Tampa. The truck is used for serious emergency situations like Hurricane Katrina and the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. The kitchen can serve 20,000 meals a day.
There are 49 canteens throughout the state of Florida, the most of any state in the U.S. Stasi said there are three different sizes of canteens. There are two smaller sized canteens that are used to get into smaller areas.
“Here in Northeast Florida we have all three sizes,” said Stasi.
The new canteen is stocked with food and can be ready to go at any time. Even though many think the canteen is only used for hurricanes, it is also used for building and wild fires, tornadoes, floods and for different police situations where officers are at a location for a long period of time.
Even though this new canteen has not been used yet, The Salvation Army of the Northeast Florida Area Command and their volunteers and staff members have gone to Bradford and Baker counties during the forest fires and in 2005 they were in Biloxi, Miss. after Hurricane Katrina and in Key West after Hurricane Wilma.
The new canteen has a 20 foot kitchen, air conditioning, a restaurant-style kitchen and everything runs off of a 20 kilowatt generator. The old canteen had a 7.5 amp generator and they also had to use a second generator to keep the kitchen running.
“We can now run everything at one time,” said Stasi.
Six volunteers can fit comfortably in the new space and they can serve about 2,500 people a day out of the new canteen. Stasi said they have a list of about 60-70 volunteers that are trained to use the canteen, but they are always looking for more.