Episcopal Press and News
'Deluge of Goodwill' Helps Episcopal Church Respond to Destructive Hurricanes
Episcopal News Service. September 16, 1992 [92188]
Trying to match the destructive speed with which hurricanes swept through southern Florida, Louisiana, and Hawaii, the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief has responded swiftly to the destruction left in their wake.
Emergency grants of $25,000 each were sent to the dioceses of Southeast Florida, Louisiana, Western Louisiana, and Hawaii following the wrath of Hurricanes Andrew and Iniki.
"We got in touch immediately with diocesan officials to give us an assessment of the situation," said Bishop Furman Stough, who resigned on September 1 as deputy of the fund. Local diocesan officials are designing their own response to the crisis, according to Stough, including the use of Episcopal churches as "command posts" for volunteers cooperating in ecumenical relief efforts.
Severe destruction by Hurricane Andrew prevented Bishop Calvin Schofield of Southeast Florida from attending the recent House of Bishops meeting in Baltimore. In a letter to the bishops, Schofield reported on relief efforts in his diocese. "This is going to be a lengthy process -- and several months will pass before things will be back to normal."
Schofield said that "three of our hardest-hit churches have turned themselves into distribution centers for food and clothing while they themselves are in the midst of rebuilding."
Schofield praised the efforts of the U.S. military in the relief effort, saying that it was "psychologically and constructively positive from all points of view. The 82nd Airborne has rebuilt the root of the Church of the Ascension [in Perrine], which was our most damaged church. The 10th Mountain Division has been doing marvelous work in the Homestead area in helping to rebuild that city and to clear some of the church properties throughout this part of the state."
Hurricane Andrew invaded the U.S. coastline on a five-day journey of destruction, with wind speeds greater than 140 miles an hour. It spawned several tornadoes, caused severe flooding and left nearly 30 people dead in the Bahamas and the United States.
The estimated $20 billion of damage in Florida alone made Andrew the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history. Officials estimate that the number of Floridians left homeless by the storm at nearly 250,000. One newspaper account described the destruction south of Miami as "a panorama of ruin."
Early accounts of the storm's fury by people on the scene were magnified by later television and newspaper reports that catalogued the extent of the destruction. Gloria van Brocklin, a Volunteer for Mission from the Diocese of Central New York, arrived in Homestead, Florida, just a week before Hurricane Andrew ripped through the area south of Miami.
"It was absolutely a nightmare," she said in a telephone interview. Van Brocklin is a nurse practitioner working with Haitian refugees in southern Florida through the ecumenical Christian Community Service Agency. "There is so much work ahead of us to rebuild our lives," she said.
Van Brocklin rode out the storm huddled in the bathroom of St. John's rectory in Homestead, at one point convinced the house was coming apart over her head. Emerging after the hurricane passed, Van Brocklin returned to her home in Homestead to find that it was miraculously untouched. "But everything around me was destroyed -- all the condominiums, the trailer parks and the Air Force base are gone," she added. "The devastation is unbelievable, beyond description. The downtown area was totally wiped out, and now you can look right through the buildings," she said. "And the area of the Haitian migrant camps has simply disappeared."
"There has been tremendous continuing response from parishes, dioceses and other compassionate people in and outside Florida," said Andy Taylor, director of communication in the Diocese of Southeast Florida.
Taylor said that people in South and North Carolina who remember their own suffering in the wake of Hurricane Hugo in 1989 have been especially responsive to the need. He added that "they loaded up vans and trucks with food, water and emergency building supplies for dealing with torn roofs and broken windows, all critically needed in the days immediately following the storm's landfall."
"The greatest need is for building a cash resource for providing immediate help for people faced with rebuilding homes and lives," Taylor added. He reported that despair from the storm's wake has "turned to frustration and anger over the lack of bureaucratic leadership and logistical coordination in bringing help to the storm's hurt, homeless and hungry people."
Louisiana coastal towns also felt the brunt of Andrew's wrath. Carol Barber, secretary to the bishop of Louisiana, reported that many homes in the town of Houma received damage, but apparently the Episcopal church had withstood the storm. Many homes in Franklin were destroyed, and St. Mary's Episcopal Church there lost its steeple and portions of its roof.
"Some of the worst damage in our diocese occurred when a tornado was spun off the hurricane near LaPlace," Barber said. Although there is no report of damage to the Episcopal church, "a six-block area of homes disappeared in 30 seconds," she reported.
Relief efforts in the Diocese of Louisiana are being coordinated through ecumenical organizations, Barber said. Initial response to the affected areas included shipments of bottled water, ice, juices, crackers, batteries, work gloves, canned foods and diapers.
"We have had an incredible volume of telephone calls and inquiries from across the country with offers of help," Barber reported. She said that the deluge of goodwill would go a long way toward rebuilding after the hurricane's fury.
Bishop Robert Hargrove of Western Louisiana reported that the hurricane wreaked considerable damage on the town of New Iberia, although Epiphany Episcopal Church was spared. "The town looks devastated -- the damage to physical property is significant," Hargrove said.
Hargrove reported that Epiphany Church in New Iberia has become the "command post" for an ecumenical relief effort that includes the Roman Catholic diocese and the American Red Cross. A makeshift hospital was set up in the parish hall, and dozens of bedridden elderly people were moved in. Diocesan officials report a constant stream of patients, and as many as 80 prescriptions of medicine are administered daily.
Hargrove said that the emergency financial assistance from the PB's Fund "made all the difference" in the effort to respond to the crisis. "Once we had assurance of the grant, we put our relief operation in motion, and then food and volunteers poured in to help people in need."
The Diocese of Western Louisiana has received telephone calls and fax messages from as far away as Japan with assurances that the people of Louisiana were in their thoughts and prayers, Hargrove reported.
Demonstrating a special concern for his former diocese, Presiding Bishop Edmond L. Browning thanked the PB's Fund for its "focused response" to the destruction left in Hawaii by Hurricane Iniki, as well as in parts of the country ravaged by Hurricane Andrew. "I thank those who have contributed to the fund and use this opportunity to ask for your continued support," he said.
According to Bill Caradine of the PB's Fund, "a steady stream of contributions" is still being received for relief efforts. "Although the devastation from Hurricane Andrew may be the worst we have ever seen, the response to the fund has been overwhelming," Stough added.
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