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Hurricane Dennis takes emotional, physical toll
July 14, 2005
A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*
Enduring yet another hurricane has taken an emotional toll on those affected by Hurricane Dennis, according to a United Methodist relief official.
The Rev. Tom Hazelwood, U.S. disaster response coordinator for the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), said that toll was evident as he began traveling around the Alabama and West Florida coast July 13 to assess hurricane damage.
“The significant thing that I’ve seen, more than anything else, is the impact on people’s emotional and spiritual lives,” he told United Methodist News Service.
In areas that have not yet recovered from the effects of Hurricane Ivan some 10 months earlier, at least half a dozen people have told Hazelwood that the anticipation of Hurricane Dennis and the time just before it hit land “was the most excruciating time they can ever remember.”
He visited the town of Milton, Fla., just northeast of Pensacola in Santa Rosa County, where the United Methodist church, homes and other buildings suffered damage. The county’s head of emergency management, who happens to be a United Methodist, lost his home from Hurricane Ivan and had not been able to move back in before Dennis struck. “He’s just exhausted,” Hazelwood said.
He expects UMCOR and members of the United Methodist Alabama-West Florida Annual (regional) Conference to address some of these emotional issues as well as assisting with cleanup and recovery efforts.
The physical damage from Hurricane Dennis occurred in a narrow band, “almost like a ten-mile tornado path,” according to Hazelwood. “Most of what we’ve seen in the path of this storm is damage to homes, mostly from trees that have fallen on them.”
Volunteer teams will be needed, he said, both for temporary cleanup and to provide skilled labor to repair homes.
In a letter to the Alabama-West Florida Conference, Bishop Larry Goodpaster expressed appreciation for UMCOR’s support and noted the conference was still assessing damage to determine where volunteer teams would be sent. “We are grateful for their (UMCOR’s) support and expertise and especially for lessons learned last September ? lessons that have helped us in preparation for this storm,” he wrote.
Reports indicate that United Methodist churches in Flomaton (Ala.) and Atmore (Ala.) suffered extensive damage, according to the bishop. “Preliminary reports from other areas indicate some water damage in our church buildings, but nothing to compare to the devastation from Ivan last September,” he said.
Even though the devastation was less than anticipated, “we do know that there is much significant damage that will need our attention,” Goodpaster wrote.
Initial reports to the Florida Annual Conference indicated that several churches had received some damage from Hurricane Dennis, according to Marilyn Swanson, the conference’s project director of storm recovery.
Those churches included Cedar Key United Methodist Church, Ray of Hope United Methodist Church in Tallahassee and First United Methodist Church of Inverness. Two claims of lightning damage were reported from Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale. “They are probably related to the storm,” she said.
The Florida Conference was filling requests for flood buckets and health kits from Cedar Key, First United Methodist Church of Apalachicola and First United Methodist Church of Eastpoint to assist with clean up in their communities.
District disaster coordinators for the conference are conducting damage assessments in the mostly rural Gulf Coast areas affected by Hurricane Dennis. “We are ready to assist with the (Florida) Panhandle, but we really have some flooding damage of our own that needs to be addressed,” Swanson said.
According to Agence France-Presse, the official death toll as a result of Hurricane Dennis was at least 40 in Haiti and 16 in Cuba as of July 12, with more reports of deaths expected. UMCOR has released emergency funds for Haiti, where at least 200 homes were destroyed in the Cayes area alone.
Several Methodist churches and house churches were destroyed in Cuba, where the Rev. Ernest Betancourt, pastor of San Pablo Methodist Church in Camaguey, asked for prayers for the people in eastern Cuba.
Contributions to United Methodist recovery efforts can be designated to Hurricanes 2005 Global, Advance No. 982523. Checks to UMCOR can be placed in church offering plates or mailed directly to UMCOR, P.O. Box 9068, New York, NY 10087-9068. To make a credit-card donation, call (800) 554-8583 or contribute on-line at www.methodistrelief.org.
UMCOR also needs donations of flood buckets filled with cleaning supplies. For more information, call UMCOR Sager-Brown in Baldwin, La., at (800) 814-8765 or visit http://gbgm-umc.org/umcor/print/kits/.
Teams and individuals wishing to volunteer in the Hurricane Dennis recovery can call UMCOR’s Volunteer Hotline toll free at (800) 918-3100.
*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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