Mississippi center coordinates disaster response
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Mark Prince of Toms Brook (Va.) United Methodist Church
makes repairs at the home of Barry Smith in Clermont Harbor, Miss.
Since Hurricane Katrina, United Methodist rebuilding efforts in
Mississippi have been coordinated by a disaster response center in
Meridian. UMNS photos by Mike DuBose.
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By Woody Woodrick*
Aug. 28, 2007 | MERIDIAN, Miss. (UMNS)
Overcoming chaos that comes with widespread disaster takes
perseverance. For nearly two years, the Rev. Chris Bowers has helped
bring unity and continuity to The United Methodist Church’s response to
Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi.
Bowers has coordinated the church's disaster response center in
Meridian since it was organized in September 2005 by the Mississippi
Annual (regional) Conference.
"The most important thing the center has been able to do is unify the
response," Bowers said. "There was a lot of difference from how one
(volunteer) camp worked to another. Each camp had a view of how things
were going that was distinct from the others. The response center pulled
everything together."
Beginning Sept. 1, Bowers will become associate pastor at Hattiesburg
Main Street United Methodist Church. His departure from the center will
come just a few days after the second anniversary of the storm on Aug.
29.
Making adjustments
Over the next several months, the call center will relocate from
Meridian to the campus of Seashore Methodist Assembly retreat center in
Biloxi. The move is part of the gradual reduction of resources expected
by the response team.
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The Rev. Theodore R. Williams Jr., pastor
of St. Paul United Methodist Church in
Pass Christian, Miss., surveys the
church's partially restored sanctuary.
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Robert Sharp, director of the Mississippi United Methodist Katrina
Response, said funding will start to drop off in April 2008. "We will be
reducing structure," he said. "With the lessons we’ve learned in
operations and procedures, I think we have a good handle on how to do
this."
The United Methodist Committee on Relief has provided $7.4 million
for the Mississippi response since Katrina, with another $2 million
committed over the next two quarters and $2 million more expected for
2008.
Sharp cites three successes in the second year of the response
effort. First, case managers have worked with families to find out their
most pressing needs so they can get the help they need. Second,
building warehouses has saved 50 percent on construction costs by
allowing items to be purchased in bulk and stored. Third, volunteers
have saved countless dollars in labor costs.
The work continues
"We’re still full bore," said Sharp. "We have 34,000 people still in
FEMA trailers as the two-year anniversary approaches. Some of those are
going to be a slow process to get back in homes."
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Robert Herrmann of Bay Ridge United Methodist Church and Suzanne
Young of Christ Church United Methodist in New York repair the interior
of the Hanshaw family home in Biloxi, Miss.
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Bowers is pleased with the number of volunteers who continue to come.
"I’m surprised at this point we still have so many people coming. We’re
still pretty much packed in at our camps through the end of the year,
and January, February and even March are filling up," he said.
Many of the more than 40,000 volunteers who have scheduled trips
through the center are making their second, third, fourth or even fifth
trips to Mississippi. The work has begun to shift from repairing homes
to completely rebuilding homes. Thus, the United Methodist Katrina
Response team has begun working even more with other organizations,
which Bowers said is "really awesome."
Hired to coordinate volunteer activity, Bowers admits the job was more complicated than he initially thought.
"My job description was to run this office and schedule where team
leaders would go," he said. "That sounds simple, but it’s really not
when you’re working with so many churches and organizations. I came on
board with the idea of scheduling teams. In the end my job included
purchasing buildings materials, paying bills and all sorts of things I
never thought I would have to do."
As he prepares to move into more traditional ministry, Bowers says he has learned a lot from his experience.
"I really think that a lot of what I’ve done over the last couple of
years has been communicating, teaching and explaining to people around
the country what we’re doing," he said.
"The church at the general and conference levels in a lot of ways
reflects the church at the local level. I had to learn to communicate
with thousands of personalities. Hopefully I’ve become a better
communicator and understand people better."
*Woodrick is editor of the Mississippi Advocate, the newspaper of the United Methodist Church’s Mississippi Annual Conference.
News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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Resources
Mississippi Annual Conference
UMCOR Hurricanes 2005
Katrina Aid Today | 
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