After just one day of rest from the work of Hurricane Gustav, local Red Cross officials immediately jumped in to prepare for the possibility that Hurricane Ike could strike the Gulf Coast later this week and send in a new wave of people seeking shelter.

Vicksburg’s shelters had barely stacked their cots and closed — the last evacuees left Vicksburg Friday morning — when the work began.

“We took Saturday off, and then executive director Beverly Connelly and I came in Sunday to begin planning,” said Janice Sawyer, emergency services director for the Vicksburg chapter. “We finished up with Gustav and began to start on Ike.”

How to help

Local disaster relief agencies need funds and supplies replenished. To make donations:

• Salvation Army

Deliver to 530 Mission 66

Food needed:

• Large (10-inch diameter) cans of vegetables

• Meat in quantity (hamburger, chicken and ground turkey)

Financial donations by check:

• Mail to P.O. Box 1166, Vicksburg 39182

Financial donations by credit card:

salvationarmyvicksburg.org (designate for disaster relief)

• American Red Cross

Financial donations by check:

• Mail to 908 Cherry St., Vicksburg 39183

Shelter managers were also doing their part to be ready, making sure sheets, towels and blankets used by evacuees last week were laundered and returned, Sawyer said. Cots and other equipment have been kept at the sites rather than being returned to storage.

“We’re in contact with all of our shelter managers, and they know that Ike is out there,” Sawyer said. “They’re prepared.”

Local Red Cross officials have also requisitioned additional supplies and personnel from their regional and national offices, Sawyer said, including drivers and service associates to assist shelter managers and workers worn out from last week’s efforts. “They’re tired,” Sawyer said. “We all need to pre-plan, though, so we can be ready.”

Seven area shelters overseen by the Red Cross operated in Warren and Issaquena counties last week for evacuees of Hurricane Gustav. At the height of the storm, Monday, about 700 evacuees were being housed and fed. Three of those shelters shut down Wednesday, three closed Thursday and the last one closed Friday.

Vicksburg’s Salvation Army corps supplied about 800 meals to the Red Cross shelter at First Baptist Church as well as clothing and volunteer support. Volunteers also were at the Mississippi Welcome Center during the storm, handing out information brochures listing area shelters, giving directions and providing important phone numbers, Capt. Patrick Lyons said.

“We also provided some meals at the welcome center,” Lyons said, “and we never shut down our Mission 66 diner. We kept serving meals there all week.”

Lyons said the Salvation Army also has continued to send food and supplies to mobile feeding units in Baton Rouge and New Orleans as those units have continued feeding residents displaced or without electricity.

“To get ready for Ike we are trying to restock our pantry,” he said. The agency needs financial donations as well as contributions of food, he said.

Hurricane Ike passed over western Cuba this morning, lessening to a Category 1 hurricane as it passed over land, but was expected to regain strength as it entered the warm waters of the Gulf. Its course remained unpredictable, with the National Weather Service forecasting this morning that Ike would head west-northwest toward the Texas-Mexico border.

“We can all speculate about Ike’s course,” Lyons said, “but the problem is, we never know for sure. We have to prepare.”