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United Methodists plan relief, open doors to evacuees
Sept. 1, 2005
A UMNS Report
By Ciona Rouse*
The Rev. Carol Sherer, a United Methodist clergywoman from New Orleans, found shelter with family friends in Marshall, Texas, after obeying the order to evacuate her city.
The enormity of Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans was still sinking in for Sherer, who served as associate pastor of Rayne Memorial United Methodist Church, near the Garden District.
“It’s just devastating! This is the city I’ve lived in for 25 years,” Sherer said.
She was one of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose lives were turned around when Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi Aug. 29.
“It’s just overwhelming to think about what we’re going to do,” she said. She expressed concern for the people in her church’s homeless ministry, members of her congregation and their partner church Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, and the more than 100 children and workers of the church’s day care center.
“What are people going to do who don’t have the resources or family to go to?” asked Sherer.
The United Methodist Church was one of the many faith groups, agencies and other organizations that responded immediately to such needs. United Methodist Committee on Relief representatives were working in annual conferences along the Gulf Coast, helping United Methodists in those areas begin to assess the damages and address the needs.
“We’re going to need a lot of help from United Methodists across the nation,” Sherer said. “We will need them to help us as we try to minister to those families.”
United Methodists and others responded strongly to the crisis by giving $570,000 online as of late afternoon Sept. 1 to support UMCOR’s hurricane recovery work.
The day before, Bishop Ed Paup, president of UMCOR and leader of the church’s Pacific Northwest Annual (regional) Conference, issued an emergency appeal for health kits, bottled water and blankets for survivors along the Gulf Coast.
“The need is desperate throughout the area devastated by the storm, especially among people who have been or are being evacuated from their homes,” Paup said.
Health kits were particularly needed, according to Gwen E. Redding, director of UMCOR’s Sager Brown Depot in Baldwin, La. “We are getting calls from all over, and we do have kits on hand but not enough to fill all the requests coming from the Gulf and around the world.”
The center also needed flood buckets containing cleanup supplies. Information on assembling and shipping the kits is available at
http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/kits.cfm. UMCOR said new blankets were preferred but recently cleaned blankets in good condition were acceptable.
Assessing damages
Church leaders of the Louisiana Annual Conference were busy trying to assess the needs in New Orleans and surrounding areas Sept. 1. Communications within the conference were severely impaired, so leaders were not able to locate many of the local pastors and church members who participated in a mandatory evacuation from the New Orleans area.
Residents continued to evacuate New Orleans, large portions of which were submerged. The National Guard moved in to restore order and help evacuate people.
“I’ve been working all day at a large shelter in downtown Baton Rouge that’s holding around 5,000 people,” said the Rev. Irvin Boudreaux, associate pastor of First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge. “We have mothers who are separated from their babies and evacuees who don’t know where their loved ones are located, or even if they are alive.”
The Alabama-West Florida Conference’s disaster recovery center resumed operation Sept. 1, after being closed since the storm struck due to a lack of power, said Meredyth Earnest, conference communicator. People interested in reaching the center can do so at (866) 340-1956 or
disaster@awfumc.org.
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