Hurricane Rita Relief Assistance Offered by Cultural Division of TECO in Houston

Three weeks after Hurricane Katrina made tremendous impact on Louisiana, especially New Orleans area, category-5 Hurricane Rita approached Texas Coast with the maximum sustained winds of 165 mph. Beaumont of Texas and Lake Charles of Louisiana are two of the major cities which suffered badly from the damage caused by Hurricane Rita, even though the storm made its landfall with reduced wind of category 3. The Cultural Division of TECO in Houston promptly formed a network of contacts to reach the 34 Taiwan students of McNeese State University and 5 of Lamar Universities after realizing both universities would be closed for an uncertain period.
Other than helping those who evacuated to Houston area to stay in motels with good quality and tight security, the Cultural Division has coordinated useful resources from local charity organizations including Taiwan Buddhist Tzu-Chi Foundation USA, Houston Taiwan Chamber of Commerce, Katrina Care, and Taiwan Innkeepers Association of Greater Houston to help out. In order to help reduce anxiety of evacuated students, an official request was urgently sent from Cultural Division to the Office of President of University of Louisiana System for expediting decision of the date to reopen McNeese State University.
The Cultural Division is also very proud of the efficient mobilization of Taiwanese Student Association of Texas A&M University in assisting 24 evacuated students from University of Houston, and of Texas Woman University in assisting 6 exchange students who are from National Sun Yat-Sen University of Taiwan and currently studying at University of Houston – Clear Lake. The long-term efforts of the Cultural Division of TECO in Houston in networking among Taiwanese students associations prove to be successful.
The relief assistance is still going on as long as our students need it. (October, 2005)