A crew of 11 volunteers from the Dallas-area chapter of the American Red Cross has headed to Iowa to help with flooding relief efforts there.

Red Cross spokeswoman Anita Foster said the group will go door to door with trucks of food and cleaning supplies for flood victims. The volunteers plan to serve about 100,000 meals each day for three weeks.

"We're prepared to send more volunteers as they are needed," Ms. Foster said Saturday. "Tomorrow is Father's Day, and we sent a lot of fathers out this morning.

"It was kind of sad as they left, but they felt that this was the right thing to do," she said.

"Unfortunately, it looks like the situation [in Iowa] is going to get worse before it gets better," Ms. Foster said.

Word has spread that the water supply may be cut off soon, she said.

Gary Smith, disaster relief director for Texas Baptist Men, said about 48 volunteers from the Dallas area left at 6 a.m. Saturday for Iowa. They will coordinate with another group from Plains, Texas, to feed about 40,000 people each day for two weeks.

Another group from Lamesa, Texas, will provide laundry and shower support for the volunteers.

A separate Gambrell Association team from Stockdale, Texas, will help sanitize and pump water out of homes that were flooded in Reedsburg, Wis.

The Stockdale group is also carrying flats of cardboard boxes and packing paper to help flood victims move belongings.

Mr. Smith said elementary children decorated the packing paper with drawings and Bible verses before it was loaded onto trucks for the trip.

The Iowa flooding is the sixth disaster the Texas Baptist Men have responded to this year.