United Methodists to help with Charley relief
Aug. 16, 2004 ALL-RM {373}
By United Methodist News Service
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Photo by the Rev. Larry Rankin Arcadia, Florida's Trinity United Methodist Church was just one of many buildings damaged during Hurricane Charley. |
As Floridians begin to recover from the effects of Hurricane Charley, United Methodists are responding to relief needs.The
hurricane, described by the United Methodist Committee on Relief as the
worst storm to hit western Florida in 100 years, struck Aug. 13 before
surging up the East Coast to the Carolinas and Virginia. The hurricane,
with its sustained winds of 131 mph to 155 mph, was responsible for at least 16 deaths and billions of dollars in damage to Florida alone.
Anticipating
Hurricane Charley’s arrival, UMCOR had shipped all available flood
buckets to Florida from its Sager Brown Depot in Louisiana. Partnering
with the agency on providing flood cleanup supplies were Mercy Center in
North Carolina; Midwest Distribution Center, Illinois, and Mission
Central, Pennsylvania.
F. Thomas Hazelwood, UMCOR’s director of
emergency services, was scheduled to arrive Aug. 16 in Florida to meet
with church-related disaster coordinators and assist with assessment of
relief needs. Members of the United Methodist Florida Annual (regional)
Conference also met Aug. 15 in Orlando to begin formulating a response.
"We’re
in the phase of trying to assess communities," said the Rev. David
Harris, the Florida Conference’s disaster response coordinator and
pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church, Arcadia, Fla. Harris told e-Review,
the conference’s online news service, that several districts contacted
him to find out what can be done, but it’s not clear at this point which
areas will be the focus of relief efforts.
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Photo by Julie Jo Adams Many homes in Orlando were left without electricity or water after the storm. |
The
members of the conference disaster response team will be meeting
people’s needs from Fort Myers to Daytona Beach and along the state’s
I-4 corridor, according to the e-Review.The goal for
the Aug. 16 meeting would be to decide a strategy for the response, said
the Rev. Larry Rankin, director of the conference’s Equipping Network’s
Missions ministry and disaster response efforts. "Some areas . . . we
just don’t know yet (the extent of damage) because of the
communications. Many communities still do not have electricity or ways
to communicate their needs," he said. Churches along the storm’s path
would become centers of relief coordination, according to the Florida
conference’s website.
The disaster response team expected to
receive damage reports from district offices and disaster response
coordinators at the Aug. 16 meeting.
The Arcadia area received
significant damage from the hurricane, Harris said. "Most of the homes
here are sticks and lots of trailer parks look like war zones. The
devastation is horrible. There is tremendous damage to downtown and
buildings have been cordoned off." The extent of the damage in Arcadia
is similar to the devastation in the retirement communities of Port
Charlotte and Punta Gorda. President George Bush, a United Methodist,
toured devastated areas by helicopter on Aug. 15 and provided comfort to
Punta Gorda residents.
Harris said that churches have been
assisting in relief efforts by delivering food house-to-house and by
arranging crews to help tarp roofs so that people will be dry. "At
Trinity, we opened our church up and delivered more than 1,000 meals to
people on Aug. 15," he said.
The damage to the Arcadia area
compelled Harris to relinquish his disaster response coordinator
position to Rankin. "My area was hit so hard that I had to step out of
the role. There are make-shift strategies going on all over," he said.
Knowing
that the Hurricane Charley would leave significant damage behind, the
conference’s claims adjustment company was open over the Aug. 13-15
weekend to receive property claims from United Methodist churches.
Prior to giving up the reins, Harris told e-Review that
there is one certain thing about relief efforts. "This may take quite
some time to finish working with those who are affected by this
disaster. We [the United Methodist Church] are here for the long haul,"
he said. "When the news has stopped reporting the impact of Charley,
when the agencies have all left Florida, we will still be here, and we
will need to continue our focus on helping people."
Volunteers wanting to assist in recovery efforts may call UMCOR’s toll-free volunteer hotline at (800) 918-3100.
UMCOR
is asking United Methodist to help replenish its supply of flood
buckets in what is now the beginning of hurricane season. The buckets
include such items as sponges, brushes, trash bags and various types of
cleaning materials. Specifications can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/print/kits online. Completed flood buckets should be sent to UMCOR Sager Brown, 101 Sager Brown Rd., Baldwin, LA 70514.
UMCOR is also requesting donations for its Material Resource Ministry, Advance #901440 for cleaning supplies that the staff and volunteers at the Sager Brown Depot will use to assemble flood buckets.
Donations
for the denomination’s response to Charley and other hurricanes should
be earmarked for Hurricanes 20004, UMCOR Advance No. 982410. Checks
written to UMCOR can be placed in church offering plates or mailed
directly to UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, N.Y. 10115.
Credit card donations can be made by calling, toll-free, (800) 554-8583.
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News media contact: Linda Bloom·(646) 369-3759·New York·E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.