wfn.org | Episcopal volunteers to aid in post

[ENS.parti@ecunet.org]

June 6, 1997
Episcopal News Service
Jim Solheim, Director
212-922-5385
ens@ecunet.org

97-1754
Episcopal volunteers to aid in post-flood decontamination of Grand Forks

by Jack Donovan
     (ENS)  When Laddie Tlucek, the rector of St. Paul's, Grand
Forks, returned to his church after the entire city had been evacuated due
to flooding, he discovered furniture floating in the parlor and the
basements of both the church and education building full of black water
contaminated with sewage, agricultural chemicals and petroleum
products. 
     On the streets, "It's like someone took a mixer and splattered
debris everywhere," he said. "And out in people's front yards, you'd
think it was a giant yard sale, but its damaged and contaminated furniture
that's going to be hauled away." 
     Through grants from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World
Relief, private donations and volunteer work crews, the Episcopal
Dioceses of North Dakota and Minnesota are preparing to assist in
cleaning up after a flood so extensive that it left virtually no resident of
the two cities unaffected. "We're all victims and we're all trying to help
each other," Tlucek said.
     "You go into Grand Forks and you see a million port-a-potties,"
he reported. "We have no sewers, no city water, no telephones, and they
can't turn on the power until they have inspections because there's
danger of electrocution."  
     "Contamination is a serious health problem in the flood area,"
noted Bishop Andrew Fairfield of North Dakota. "If you walk through
the streets you can tell; it stinks." Fairfield emphasized that volunteers
must receive the Red Cross training in decontamination before beginning
the work of "ripping out contaminated sheet rock and applying bleach
and triphosphates, power washers and elbow grease" to the filth saturated
into every affected structure. 

Self-sufficient volunteers
     In addition to a $25,000 grant from the fund, Fairfield reported
over $48,000 in donations to the diocese in response to flooding. The
fund grant is being held in reserve against long-term need, but Fairfield
has created a committee composed of representatives from the five
Episcopal churches in the Red River Valley to determine how to allocate
the private donations and supervise volunteer work crews. 
     Sandra Holmberg, a Fargo priest and part-time bishop's assistant
who is leading that team, said that she's received calls from every part of
the country from Episcopalians who want to volunteer in the cleanup.
She called this a "gracious response" but cautioned volunteers preparing
to travel to Grand Forks to arrive "self-sufficient" and not rely on the
overburdened flood victims for food or bedding. The Diocese of
Minnesota, which has had flooding near Minneapolis as well as along the
North Dakota border, also received a $25,000 grant from the Fund and
has been working with the Diocese of North Dakota to provide relief in
the Red River Valley.

Northward flowing floodwaters
     While the cleanup began in Grand Forks, the crest of the
northward flowing Red River of the North had reached Winnipeg,
Manitoba, where it threatened to overwhelm dikes that stood a mere two
blocks from the diocesan office of the Anglican Church of Canada's
diocese of Rupert's Land. Administrative assistant Carol Thropp said the
office was empty because everyone else was loading sandbags onto dikes
and watching for breaches. Bishop Patrick Lee of Rupert's Land had
gone to make sure his house was still secure.
     Like Grand Forks and East Grand Forks this year, Winnipeg was
devastated by flood in 1950 and, in the decade following, constructed a
48 kilometer diversion called the Red River Floodway which reroutes
half of the surging river's water during flood emergencies. Such large
scale redesign is inevitable for Grand Forks as well. "It won't be the
same," Tlucek said. "The whole town will be changed. Some places have
been declared nonlivable, whole neighborhoods--they'll be turned into
green spaces. And the downtown, where there was the big fire, that will
be totally different." 
     "It's a chance for the city to reconsider its future and it's a chance
for us to look at our ministry and decide how we want to proceed," he
said. "But it also reminds me of how important ordinary, everyday things
are. We have to try to approximate those things right now, then we'll be
doing OK."

--Jack Donovan is the communications assistant for the office of news
and information for the Episcopal Church.