Three teams from the Akron-based relief agency currently are working to prevent secondary damage to homes in Mississippi and Mobile, Ala., by covering damaged roofs with tarps and cutting trees from roofs with chain saws, King said.

MDS has volunteer crews lined up for the coming months, but it still needs cash donations to pay for tarps, nails, chainsaws and food for volunteers, King said.

The crews, each containing about 10 people, are made up of volunteers from Lancaster County, Kentucky and Indiana and will be replaced by new volunteers after a week of work.

Long after FEMA and insurance checks are passed out, King said, MDS will remain in the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina and start rebuilding. In Florida, for example, his organization is still working in three locations to repair damage from the 2004 hurricane season.

"The primary task of MDS is to get people out of their shelters and back home as soon as possible," King said.

The agency will try to establish three or four sites for long-term projects. Each site would have 40 to 45 volunteers and would need two vans and a pickup truck to transport equipment and crews, King said.

"(The volunteers) don't want the lack of tools or lack of transportation to hold them back -- or we hear (about) it," King said.

Long-term volunteers would serve as cooks, office managers and construction supervisors at the site.

King returned to Lititz Sunday after spending several days surveying hurricane damage in Mississippi and Alabama. He flew from Leesburg, Va., to Mobile, Ala., Wednesday on a flight paid for by Angel Flight.

He and the pilot flew low over the storm-ravaged region Thursday. King said he heard transmissions over the plane's radio -- transmissions such as "We're withdrawing, we're withdrawing, we're taking fire" -- which were like flashbacks to Iraq, where he took part in relief efforts two years ago.

On the ground, King said, he was overwhelmed by the sounds of helicopters and ambulances, and also by the disturbing silence of deserted "ghost towns."

He smelled rotting leaves, garbage, gas leaks and fuel in the water. He smelled corpses for the first time in his life in downtown Gulfport, Miss., where three refrigerated tractor-trailers were set up as a temporary morgue near a funeral home.

King walked the streets of Biloxi, Miss., Gulfport and southern Mobile.

The absence of simple necessities such as gasoline makes it a disaster within a disaster, he said.

After a catastrophic event, MDS maps out Mennonite and Anabaptist churches in or around the affected area to use as temporary bases of operations.

When King got to Gulfhaven Mennonite Church at Gulfport, which no one had been able to contact for almost a week, the pastor was overjoyed to see someone come in from the outside. The pastor had nearly run out of gas, so King drove him around to check on his parishioners.

When King came upon an informal neighborhood cookout on the outskirts of Gulfport, he said he could feel the sense of community.

"One lady was commenting, 'Yeah, we should make a cookbook out of Katrina, such as how to make chocolate chip cookies on your grill.'"ˆ"

To contribute to the Mennonite Disaster Service hurricane-relief effort, visit www.mds.mennonite.net or call 859-2210.

Agencies around the county continue to gather supplies and send aid to victims of the hurricane. The efforts include:

·Five Lancaster County ambulances are part of a 23-ambulance caravan that left Saturday for Mississippi, LEMSA Executive Director C. Robert May said Monday. LEMSA, Northwest EMS and Willow Street EMS each sent one ambulance, and Susquehanna Valley EMS sent two ambulances.

The LEMSA ambulance, with four LEMSA paramedics onboard, arrived in New Orleans Monday morning. The paramedics are Dave Nitsch, Bill Kanoff, Danielle Margevich and Ian Solodky.

·Two Lancaster firefighters, Kyle Davidson and Angel Sanchez, left Sunday for Alabama and will spend up to a month helping hurricane victims.

·Lititz Moravian Church is collecting items for health kits that church members will assemble Sept. 16. Each kit will include a hand towel, washcloth, comb (large and sturdy, not pocket-size), nail file or fingernail clippers (no emery boards or toenail clippers), bath-size bar of soap (3 oz. or larger), toothbrush (individually wrapped brushes only, no child-size brushes), large tube of toothpaste, six Band-Aids and a one-gallon baggie.

Anyone donating items can assemble the kits or simply take the items to Lititz Moravian Church, 8 Church Square, Lititz. The church phone number is 626-8515.