|More

 

Text

Translate

Disclaimer

This translation is not completely accurate as it was automatically generated by a computer.
Powered by

A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*

6:00 P.M. EDT Sept. 12, 2011

Tropical storm Lee caused flooding in areas throughout the northeast, including major areas of Pennsylvania – as in this photo from Holtwood, near the Susquehanna River.
A web-only photo courtesy of flickr creative commons/mdmarkus66.

The flooding of the Susquehanna River has had major consequences for the United Methodist conference of the same name.

Since the river spans the Susquehanna Annual (regional) Conference from north to south, floodwaters affected eight of its 11 districts, said the Rev. Larry Siikanen, conference disaster coordinator.

Across the Northeastern United States, United Methodists were continuing to respond Sept. 12 to the one-two punch of flooding caused consecutively by Tropical Storms Irene and Lee.

The United Methodist Committee on Relief has provided the Susquehanna Conference with a $10,000 initial grant for flood relief. Siikanen said he is hiring three people to help coordinate cleanup and recovery work for the northeast, central and southern parts of the conference. “They will be on the ground tomorrow,” he added.

Pennsylvania flooding last week began with the overflow from small streams and creeks and ended with the rising waters of the Susquehanna. Some homeowners were inundated by both floods, he noted.

Communities hardest hit included Wilkes-Barre and the Wyoming Valley, Hershey, Bloomsburg, sections of Harrisburg and the York area. The conference still is collecting information on flood damage to church buildings. “We had a number of churches with water in the basement, but we did have a few who had water in their sanctuary,” Siikanen said.

Accepting work teams

One of his main priorities is coordinating the work teams already arriving from around the conference and lining up support, such as shower facilities, for teams coming in over the long haul. “It’s probably going to be two or three years before we get everything back into shape,” he explained.

Siikanen said he welcomes work teams from outside the Susquehanna Conference. Those interested in scheduling a visit should contact him by email at lsiikanen@susumc.org.

The Susquehanna flows into Pennsylvania from Tioga County, New York, which sustained record flooding as did adjacent Broome County in the state’s Southern Tier. “It’s been a second disaster overlaying the first,” explained the Rev. Carl Chamberlain, Upper New York Conference disaster coordinator.

In New York, new rains from Lee halted relief efforts in areas flooded earlier as evacuations were imposed. “We had to pull out our early response teams and close down the volunteer center in Middleburg,” Chamberlain said. In the end, he added, “Most of the (new) storm really came west of where Hurricane Irene had dumped.”

By Sept. 9, the Upper New York Conference reported flood damage at a number of churches, including Nimmonsburg, near the Chenango River, in the flooded section of Binghamton, and the United Methodist churches in Tioga Center, Wellsburg, Owego, the Westover section of Johnson City, Barton, Nichols, Lounsberry, Vestal Center and Newark Valley.

Even a few days later, Chamberlain did not know the total number of churches affected by the flooding. “In some places, communications are still down,” he noted.

While the rising river in the city of Binghamton made for dramatic television news, the damage was much more widespread.

“These little crossroads communities scattered around the Southern Tier never make the news,” Chamberlain pointed out. “But some of those just are horrendous. You might have a couple of storefronts, two dozen houses, and 20 are damaged. That’s the sort of common report I’m getting from out in the country.”

In such communities, the church is one of the gathering spots. Some sit on high ground, but he said other churches are “literally down in the valley” and take in six feet of water.

Crews in downtown Margaretville, N.Y., survey the recent
damage from Hurricane Irene. A UMNS web-only photo
courtesy of The Rev. L. Lawrence Dunlap.

He expected UMCOR to deliver a load of flood buckets from a denominational warehouse in Illinois this week to Broome and Tioga counties.

New York, New Jersey response

New Jersey also received additional rains from Tropical Storm Lee. Gyuchang Sim, coordinator of the denomination’s Greater New Jersey Conference disaster response committee, said the United Methodist church in Wayne was doing outreach to that community, hit by flooding from the Passaic River. The worst church-related flooding was in Paterson, also along the Passaic.

In the Catskills region, the New York Conference has been able to continue its flood relief efforts after temporary evacuations on Sept. 7 because of rain. The Rev. Dale Ashby reported that he would be working with a small group of early response team volunteers in Lexington on Sept. 12-13, with other teams going to Prattsville and Fleischmanns.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http://twitter.com/umcscribe.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

How to help: Donations to assist the denomination’s response to the tropical storm flooding can be made to UMCOR Advance No. 901670, U.S. Disaster Response, designated for Hurricanes 2011.