wfn.org | Florida United Methodists take no chances with Floyd

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Sept. 15, 1999 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{469}

By United Methodist News Service*

At four times the size of Hurricane Andrew, weather forecasters are calling
Hurricane Floyd the biggest storm yet to threaten the United States
mainland. 

An estimated 3.5 million residents in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas are
evacuating their homes, and Virginia is expected to tell its coastal
residents to move inland. Governors in all five states have declared states
of emergency, and President Clinton declared Florida and Georgia federal
disaster areas on Sept. 15. 

The hurricane is expected to make landfall Sept. 16 near the border of North
and South Carolina.

Shelters in Central Florida's Orange County are housing 4,000 residents
alone, the most ever in shelters there, according to local news reports. The
United Methodist Church's Florida Annual (regional) Conference has activated
more than 780 churches as shelters.

"We've put out the word to our membership to bring their neighbors," said
the Rev. Barry Lane, at Morrison United Methodist Church. "We aren't going
to turn anyone away."

Nearly 60 percent of the members of Mims (Fla.) United Methodist Church have
evacuated, according to the Rev. David Harris, Mims' pastor. The church is
in the Florida Conference's Melbourne District.

"We called all members and know where everyone is," Harris said Sept. 14. "A
good number are leaving."

Many of the church's members live in mobile homes and left them after
mandatory evacuations of mobile home parks, barrier islands and low-lying
areas were issued.

Mims is in Brevard County five miles north of the city of Titusville and one
of the places that the storm was expected to hit hardest. "We're on the hump
of the state," Harris said. "Probably in the worst of it."

Streets were bare, stores were closed and there was "almost not a car out
there," he said. "People are hunkering down to weather out the storm."
	
Mims member and trustees chair Bill Touchton was not one of them. He, his
wife and 16-year-old daughter headed inland to Sanford to ride out the storm
at a hotel there.

"I just happened to be in Miami for work three months after Hurricane
Andrew. I know they're [hurricanes] nothing to fool around with," Touchton
said. "Those who didn't get to see it just don't understand."

Touchton said they decided to leave Sept. 12 and were prepared. In fact, he
said his family is always prepared, especially after enduring wildfires that
devastated the area around his home and other parts of the state last year. 

"The fires came within a mile of us," he said. "We were ready to run if it
came to that."

Despite Floyd's threat, Touchton said he was calm about the storm and
evacuating. "You've got to be calm about it. There's nothing you can do
about it but get out of the way," he said. "You leave the rest in the Lord's
hands."

Some churches are housing people with special needs. The Azalea Park United
Methodist Church in Orlando is providing shelter to nearly 50 Alzheimer's
patients from a retirement home in Palm Bay. Other Orlando churches have
offered their parking lots to boat and camper owners who need a secure place
to park their vehicles.

The Sanlando United Methodist Church in Longwood, Fla., has opened its doors
for pets and their owners, since most shelters don't allow pets.

Members of at least eight United Methodist churches in the DeLand District,
which includes the Daytona Beach and Palm Coast areas, also evacuated,
according to Martha Gay Duncan of that district's office.

She said spirits are good, however, and members are lending a hand to
neighbors. The Rev. Neil Lacy and a group of men from First United Methodist
Church, New Smyrna Beach, went house to house one night helping residents
secure their homes with plywood. 

DeLand District Superintendent Mont Duncan delivered $200 worth of food to a
shelter at the DeLand fairgrounds at the request of the emergency management
office.

"We are in a waiting mode to see what challenges we face and in what ways we
can share God's love in the days ahead," Martha Duncan said. "Pray for us."

Donations for relief may be sent to the United Methodist Committee on Relief
and marked for "Hurricanes '99 - Advance No. 982460-1. Checks can be placed
in church offering plates or sent directly to UMCOR at Riverside Drive, Room
330, New York, N.Y.  10115. Credit-card donations may be made by calling
(800) 554-8583.

# # #

*This story was compiled from reports by Tita Parham, editor of the Florida
United Methodist Review newspaper, and Susan Kim of Disaster News Network
(online at www.disasternews.net). 

______________
United Methodist News Service
http://www.umc.org/umns/
newsdesk@umcom.umc.org
(615)742-5472