While the winds of war have preoccupied much of the planet, winds of another kind—a tornado—slammed into and destroyed 75 homes in the south Georgia town of Camilla, just as they did three years ago.

In this latest storm, five people were killed and 100 were injured, news reports say. On Feb. 14, 2000, 11 people lost their lives and 200 homes were damaged. Some of the homes repaired three years ago were damaged again in this storm.

Just as they did in 2000, residents are turning to Adventist Community Services and the Adventist Disaster Response Team to help the victims of this latest disaster, one that largely went unreported amidst the flood of war-related news.

Working with The Salvation Army, the American Red Cross, the Georgia Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Committee on Relief, Adventist Community Services executive directors in Georgia, Hew and Carolyn Lipscomb of Arabi, are heading up efforts at a distribution warehouse. As goods come in, they will be separated and prepared for families in need.

However, unlike three years ago, the latest tornado did not elicit immediate public support. “You could fit all the goods we received so far into the back of a pickup truck,” Hew Lipscomb told ANN.

However, he says, “donations will start coming in,” after several broadcast outlets in the region showed pictures of a near-empty warehouse.

“We were welcomed with open arms,” Lipscomb says of his return to the area a little more than three years to the day after the 2000 tornado. “The people there wanted us and trust us to help.”