wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Ivan spares most Presbyterian church property

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

04417
September 22, 2004

Ivan spares most Presbyterian church property

But hurricane slams homes, kills one man

by Evan Silverstein

LOUISVILLE - Hurricane Ivan, despite wreaking havoc on the Florida and
Alabama coasts last week, inflicted only minor damage to most Presbyterian
churches in its path, according to initial reports, but took a heavier toll
on the home of church-goers.
	 One Presbyterian man died in North Carolina after wind gusts sent a
tree crashing into his home as the remnants of Ivan roiled rivers and
ripped the sides from mountains in the state's western tip.
	 Jay Walker, a 55-year-old member of Trinity Church in
Hendersonville, NC, died instantly when a tree crashed into his home in
Flat Rock, NC, as he slept. He was killed instantly. His wife is
uninjured.
	 A number of presbyteries are reporting that members are reporting
heavy damage to residences.
	 The western portion of the Presbytery of Florida, which covers the
state's panhandle, received the brunt of Ivan's 130 mph winds when it
blasted U.S. shores Sept. 16. The powerful storm made landfall near the
Alabama resort towns of Gulf Shores and Orange Beach before ripping into
Pensacola, FL.
	 Miraculously, Presbyterian churches along Ivan's trail of
destruction sustained only minor damage amid the Category 4 storm.
	 'We have water damage,' said Joanne Hines, the Presbytery of
Florida's interim executive presbyter. 'Not a tremendous amount, but
every church seems to have a little bit. There is a little bit of damage
from some of the tree branches falling through sheds and so forth.'
	 There were a handful of churches in hard-hit Pensacola and Fort
Walton Beach that Hines had been unable to reach earlier this week, but
said she heard through others that the congregations were in good shape.
	 'God is our refuge and strength,' Hines said following
Florida's third deadly storm in weeks. 'We build on rock.'
	 Only Trinity Presbyterian Church in Pensacola reported significant
damage after high winds battered the roof of its activities center,
stripping a section down to the wood with almost no shingles or tar paper
remaining, according to Jim Green, an elder who chairs the congregation's
Facilities Committee.
	 He said blowing rain poured through cracks in the damaged roof onto
a gymnasium floor, covering it with two inches of water. He said classroom
floors were soaking wet and a stairwell was blocked by tiles and
installation from a collapsed ceiling.
	 'I don't think anything has to be demolished,' said Green, as
work crews were busy mopping up the soggy gymnasium floor. 'I think
we'll have to put a new roof on and we'll have to rework all the
insides of those classrooms.'
	 The sanctuary at Trinity Church, which is separate from the
activities center, was undamaged with two regular Sunday services
proceeding as scheduled Sept. 19, though without electricity or air
conditioning.
	 Green said local officials reported that thousands were without
power in the area following the storm and said he believed that all members
of Trinity Church were without electricity as of Monday. He said phone
service was at a premium.
	 'Very few people have power,' Green said. 'Anybody that has
anything has generators. There are people from all over the country that
are doing a fantastic job of clearing, but it's a big job ahead.'
	 Hines said presbytery officials believe a small tornado was
responsible for damaging a shed and numerous trees at Dogwood Acres, a
Presbytery of Florida camp and conference center located outside Vernon,
FL.
	 Hines said the homes of Presbyterian members could have sustained
more damage than churches in the Presbytery of Florida, which includes 48
congregations from Pensacola to Tallahassee.
	 'We know there is a lot of damage to personal homes, but we
don't quite know the extent of that yet,' Hines said.
	 Green said an undetermined number of members at Trinity Church had
homes severely damaged by the storm.
	 'We have a lot of members that we're trying to take care of,'
he said. 'We have a lot of trees on houses. We have some members that
don't have roofs, some that don't have houses.'
	 South Alabama and Mississippi presbyteries reported few problems in
their regions, other than power outages and downed trees.
	 'We were fortunate, nothing major,' said the Rev. Samford
Turner, executive presbyter/stated clerk at the Presbytery of South
Alabama.
	 Ivan's tore across the south and northeast leaving 49 people
dead, 19 of them in Florida. Earlier, it was blamed for 70 deaths in the
Caribbean.
	 More than a million people were initially without power across 13
states, leaving many in Florida's Panhandle and Alabama's Gulf Coast to
sweat it out without air conditioning. At a Pensacola shopping center,
people waited in cars or on foot for hours Saturday to receive necessities
from Florida National Guard troops, according to published reports.
	 'It looks worse than it does on the news,' Green said of the
devastation in Pensacola. 'It's hard to describe when you see 30 or 40
pine trees down in one person's yard and they're on the house and you
can't even tell the house is back there.'
	 In a Sept. 17 situation report, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
(PDA) said that $160,000 from the One Great Hour of Sharing Offering and
designated disaster funds has been sent to presbyteries affected by the
hurricanes for relief work and for church repair. A combined $7,000 has
been sent to Church World Service and the Disaster News Network.
	 Presbyterian Disaster Assistance Team (PDAT) members the Revs. Bill
Neely and Alonza Washington were traveling to the central Gulf Coast this
week to help assess damage and to assist impacted presbyteries organize
response efforts, the situation report said.
	 The remnants of hurricanes Frances and Ivan caused major flooding
in western North Carolina when it tore through the region Sept. 17,
bringing with it winds of up to 60 mph and from 3 to 12 inches of rain.
	 Most members of Trinity Presbyterian Church in Hendersonville, NC,
-- which lost one member -- were without power and phone service at the
time, though the church building sustained no damage.
	 At least three Presbyterian Churches in the Presbytery of Western
North Carolina sustained flooding, according to Ginnie Stevens, the
presbytery's Associate for Mission.
	 'It was a shock and a sorrow as well,' said the Rev. John Odom,
associate pastor at Trinity Church, speaking of Walker's death. 'The
whole community has rallied behind the family.'
	 The storm killed at least seven others in North Carolina - two of
them children. The storm left a trail of disaster in 16 counties. Downed
trees, power lines, and flooding have made the roads in Henderson County,
located in the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, all but impassable.
	 'If Florida hadn't been hit we would be the major news,' said
Stevens. 'We have a lot of damage in pockets. There's going to be a
long-term recovery.'
	 Flooding also impacted presbyteries in eastern Ohio and western
Pennsylvania.
	 Financial contributions for hurricane relief can be made by mailing
checks to: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Individual Remittance Processing,
P.O. Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Gifts by credit card may be
made by calling PresbyTel at 800-872-3283 or online at:
http://www.pcusa.org/pda. Refer to relief #9-2000015 for U.S. disaster
response; #9-2000163 for U.S. church property damage; and #9-2000166 for
Caribbean disaster response.

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