If the 17 Hurricane Rita evacuees being cared for by Vicksburg’s Red Cross get the OK to go home, the city’s one remaining shelter will be closed by Friday, officials said.

“Whenever they hear it’s safe to go back, they’re going home,” Red Cross Emergency Services Director Janice Sawyer said today. “We also have some going with relatives in other states.”

The remaining evacuees, mostly from Texas, were at Calvary Baptist Church, Sawyer said. Most were waiting on word of conditions in their hometowns.

Meanwhile, all 14 Red Cross volunteers from other states who helped set up the three church shelters last weekend have been dispatched to Hattiesburg and points south.

“There is greater need down there at this time,” Sawyer said.

One of the other Vicksburg shelters, at Hawkins United Methodist, closed at noon Tuesday.

A dozen local residents whose homes were damaged by Hurricane Rita’s weekend flooding were assisted by local Red Cross volunteers Tuesday.

Vouchers for clothing, food and cleaning supplies were distributed based on damage assessments by Red Cross volunteers.

Officials at the city’s sewage treatment plant said there was no major damage, describing flooding at the Rifle Range Road facility as minor.

“The water drained on its own into adjacent creeks. It never got into the plant and we never lost power,” said Rosemary Bagby, manager.

Attempts to sandbag were eventually successful, leaving only a mop-up of mud on a ground floor of the pumping building adjacent to the lagoon field, Bagby said.

On the relief efforts front, the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists plans to distribute 50 Visa gift cards to evacuees and those hosting evacuee families.

“These are untimely circumstances, but efforts like this seem to have brought a lot of people together,” said Dave Claxton, a project coordinator with the Washington, D.C.-based trade union.

The group contacted the office of U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and former North Ward Alderman Gertrude Young among others to find out where the needs were the greatest, Claxton said.

Local residents like Brenda Love, who sponsored 17 evacuees from New Orleans’ hard-hit Ninth Ward, can use the cards for food, toiletries, clothing and other necessary items the evacuee families need.

Nine of those evacuees have found local housing, Love said.

Coldwell Banker All Stars Inc. is also coordinating donations of household goods, mainly furniture, for evacuees. Those with beds, mattresses or chairs to donate may call Becky Lanier at the office at 601-634-8928, office manager Lori Anderson said.

Separately, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security extended the deadline to file for Disaster Unemployment Assistance from Oct. 7 to Nov. 30.

The deadline was extended because of the number of displaced workers, the MDES said in a release Tuesday.

The MDES office in Vicksburg has taken at least 800 DUA applications since two hurricanes hit the area, mostly from Louisianians, said Benny Terrell, manager of the local unemployment insurance office.

DUA has been authorized for those who lived or worked in 47 counties:

Adams, Amite, Attala, Claiborne, Choctaw, Clarke, Copiah, Covington, Forrest, Franklin, George, Greene, Hancock, Harrison, Hinds, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, Jones, Kemper, Lamar, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Leake, Lincoln, Lowndes, Madison, Marion, Neshoba, Newton, Noxubee, Oktibbhea, Pearl River, Perry, Pike, Rankin, Scott, Simpson, Smith, Stone, Walthall, Warren, Wayne, Wilkinson, Winston and Yazoo.

Applications may be made by phone at 1-888-844-3577 or by visiting any open WIN Job Center in the state. Mississippians may be eligible to receive the state’s maximum unemployment insurance benefit of $210 per week.