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The Salvation Army dispatched two mobile canteens from Winston-Salem and Greensboro to the Atlanta area Wednesday to provide food and water to victims and emergency crews searching for people reported missing during torrential storms earlier this week.

“This is what it means to be a part of the Salvation Army,” said Jake Richmond, a local corps assistant who is on his first disaster relief assignment and will help operate one of the canteens.

“I didn’t even think about saying no,” said Richmond, who normally does odd jobs such as driving the bus around Greensboro to pick up children for church.

The deployed teams are expected to work in conjunction with the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. The trip comes in the days after heavy rains left as many as 10 people dead across the Southeast and flooded homes, schools and businesses in the Atlanta area.

Each mobile feeding unit will be on the ground for a week and is able to serve 1,500 meals without restocking, said Maj. Paul Egan, commander of the Greensboro unit.

“Once we arrive in Atlanta, we’ll be given a rundown of what we are facing,” said Capt. Mike Rodgers of the Mount Airy Salvation Army, who will travel with the Greensboro crew. His chapter does not have a mobile unit of its own, but he has the experience of responding to flood, hurricanes and tornados — even in having to sleep in the mobile meal truck.

“Whatever they need you to do, you figure it out and do it,” Rodgers said.

Most likely the teams will encounter people whose lives are getting back to normal, but are still without electricity or are faced with food that has gone bad.

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com