wfn.org | CWS and PDA Aid Relief Efforts in Storm-damaged Northeast

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

23-January-1998 
98029 
 
    CWS and PDA Aid Relief Efforts 
    in Storm-damaged Northeast 
 
    by Alexa Smith 
 
LOUISVILLE, Ky.--The apparently generator-run answering machine at 
Presbyterian lay preacher Rachel Roberts' upstate New York dairy farm says, 
"We're continuing here with no electricity.  No phone.  And no hope of 
either for at least a week, maybe two.  But we have considerable amounts of 
firewood.  So please, if you need some, stop by. If you're a farmer needing 
diesel fuel, please stop by." 
 
    "No phone, no electricity, no hope of either" has become a familiar 
litany in New York State's upper five counties, which coincidentally match 
boundaries of the Presbytery of Northern New York.  Though power and water 
crews have been working 18-hour shifts, in rural areas power outages and 
frozen water lines and pipes have plagued the north country since severe 
ice storms swept through there two weeks ago. 
 
    "Still, there are many people without electricity at all in rural 
areas," said Church World Service (CWS) coordinator Joanne Hale, who drove 
upstate from Buffalo a few days ago.  "Poles are still down in the roads. 
Orange traffic cones are up ... and you just drive around the poles and 
wires. 
 
    "This was nine days after the initial emergency." 
 
    CWS is the relief arm of the National Council of Churches (NCC) in New 
York City, which works in tandem with Presbyterian Disaster Assistance 
(PDA).  A PDA consultant, the Rev. John Robinson Jr. of Highland Memorial 
Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Va., is scheduled to meet with 
Presbyterians in Potsdam, N.Y., Feb. 2, to begin coordinating long-term 
ecumenical relief work and to help with initial damage assessment. 
 
    PDA has also forwarded $20,000 in One Great Hour of Sharing funds to 
the Synod of the Northeast for use in the Presbytery of Northern New York 
and in the equally hard hit Presbytery of Northern New England, which spans 
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 
 
    "Dairy farmers are the ones who are having trouble," said the Rev. 
Clint McCoy, executive of Northern New York Presbytery, who says farmers 
have been forced to dump millions of gallons of milk that they were unable 
to move during the storms.  "Some of them are continuing with no power. 
And some have two to four more weeks to go. ... 
 
    "They're having to move generators to milk [the cows] and to cool the 
milk. Part of the problem is they've had to spill an awful lot of milk." 
 
    Since milk prices were already down through the summer and fall, the 
current losses have many dairy farmers worried, said Presbyterian Barbara 
Fisher of Madrid, N.Y., who operates a large dairy farm with her husband, 
Max, and who works for the local Farm Bureau. 
 
    "This is devastation to a lot of 'em," said Fisher, reporting that some 
cows sickened because farmers were unable to milk them and a few even died. 
"When cows are stressed, farmers are doubly stressed." 
 
    Fisher said the Farm Bureau hauled portable generators on loan from 
farmers further down state into the north country to aid milking - and even 
sent an engineer out to each farm to help install the generator and a 
mental health worker to help assess other stresses.  But some generators 
had to be toted from farm to farm.  CWS bought 10 electric generators for 
use in iced-in communities in cooperation with the United Church of Christ 
and distributed another 10 across the border in Canada, assisted by 
Adventist Community Services. 
 
    Sixty or so farms are still on generators - some that have been running 
for six to 10 days straight.  "We're burning up generators and we're 
burning up tractors [which are used to run the generators]," said Fisher, 
who reported that few farmers are ensured against such losses - and even 
those insured may not get paid because the storm could be deemed "an act of 
God." 
 
    McCoy told the Presbyterian News Service that it is hard to imagine the 
kind of storms that hit the Northeast so suddenly - and kept going for five 
nights and three days.  "It is difficult for people to grasp how much ice 
there was," he said, describing a 30-foot-by-15-foot slab that fell from 
his house in Potsdam just the other day.  "There's just not enough sun or 
warmth.  There's still a buildup of ice." 
 
    He paused and said with a laugh, "I don't think we'll be using the 
walkway till spring." 
 
    The presbytery has been using flatbed trucks to haul dry wood to eight 
drop sites in four counties - wood that has been collected and delivered by 
five other New York presbyteries, including Albany, Geneva, Genesee Valley, 
Utica and Cayuga-Syracuse.  Eighteen-wheelers will be bringing in another 
shipment this week, said McCoy, who added that wood has been shipped even 
further north into Quebec, where some families were reportedly tearing down 
decks and porches to burn for heat. 
 
    Some north country families, he said, have gone through a whole year's 
supplemental wood supply in just a few weeks or have broken the budget to 
pay for enough fuel to keep warm and to keep the farm going even minimally. 
 
    "This just hit," said Hale.  "Basically it rained, and all of a sudden 
it turned to ice.  There were three to five inches of ice on the trees.  It 
looked like the trees doubled in size because of the ice hanging off them. 
It was unreal. 
 
    "It looked like a war zone." 
 
    And it sounds like the region took on some other characteristics of a 
war zone. According to reports from the Rev. Jan Fife, pastor of the Scotch 
Presbyterian Church in Madrid, N.Y., only emergency vehicles were allowed 
to use highways and backroads because of downed trees and limbs. 
Pedestrians or vehicles along the roads were fined and a curfew was 
instituted from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. The declared state of emergency was 
finally lifted Jan. 21. 
 
    "It's very stressful," she said, adding that one isolated and 
overwrought farmer began shooting his cows just to end their suffering. 
"You begin losing contact with the outside.  Even local radio stations were 
off the air.  In some areas there were no phones." 
 
    McCoy said that insurance ought to cover the limited damage to churches 
and the presbytery office during the storms.  Damage to area apple orchards 
and maple sugar trees has not yet been assessed. 
 
    "We're on the mend," he said. "But for some folks, it's going to take a 
long time." 
 
    To contribute to the relief effort, send your check made out to 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and marked for U.S.A. Disaster Account 
#9-2000015 to your normal receiving site or to Central Receiving, 100 
Witherspoon Street, Louisville, KY 40202-1396.  Credit card donations may 
be made by calling PresbyTel at 1-800-872-3283. 

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