Samaritan's Purse sends help to Oklahoma

A Disaster Relief Unit from Samaritan's Purse will be deployed Tuesday morning to the Oklahoma City area, which was hit with tornadoes Sunday and Monday.

The Boone-based Christian relief agency reported on its Web site Monday that staff members from the N.C. headquarters left Sunday to get a close-up view of the damage and needs in the affected area.

Then there was more devastation Monday.

The Disaster Relief Unit is a tractor trailer rig filled with equipment and supplies. It will be the group's base of operations in Oklahoma City.

The mile-wide twister leveled homes, businesses and schools in Moore, a suburb of Oklahoma City.

This is the second time Samaritan's Purse has responded to a tornado hitting Moore. A storm there in 1999 had the highest winds ever recorded near the earth's surface -- 302 miles miles per hour. It killed 41 people.

Samaritan's Purse and the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which sends chaplains to disaster areas, were already in the Southeast responding to tornadoes that hit Hood County in north Texas last Wednesday night.

-- Tim Funk