Counseling needs grow as hurricane devastation mounts
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (BP)--After dealing with Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne within a six-week period, residents of central Florida are experiencing more than property damage and power outages. Along with clean up and recovery crews, residents need volunteer chaplains and counselors to help in stress management, according to Baptist disaster relief workers.
Fla. Baptists ready to respond to aftermath of Jeanne
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| Anchor in the storms At Pensacola Beach, where the entire peninsula was covered with sand and debris after a 40-foot high wave unleashed by Hurricane Ivan smashed ashore, a cross offered hope Sept. 25 even as Hurricane Jeanne, the fourth storm to hit Florida this season came ashore the next day on the southeast Florida coast near Vero Beach. Photo by John J. Hannigan III/Florida Baptist Witness |
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| Looming destruction High tides and driving rain threatened the Jacksonville pier Sept. 25, the day before Hurricane Jeanne made landfall at Port St. Lucie. The new pier was already damaged by Hurricane Frances when that storm spawned tornadoes and high winds just weeks before on its march through the state. Photo by Joni B. Hannigan/Florida Baptist Witness |
It is the first time since 1886 when four hurricanes blasted through Texas in a single season that four hurricanes have hit a state successively. In Florida, Hurricane Jeanne followed Charley, Frances and Ivan. Jeanne, a 400-mile diameter storm, followed Frances' path inland, stirring debris left from the other storms.
About 1.2 million homes and businesses were without power Sunday, including much of Palm Beach County. Even before Jeanne hit, some 80,000 people still had no electricity in the panhandle following Ivan, and officials feared many could be without power for three weeks or more.
SBC relief effort given high marks by Punta Gorda residents
PUNTA GORDA, Fla. (BP)--Ed Palmer and Wampus Wagoner know what a blessing it can be to receive a hot meal and a cold bottle of water when your home has been blasted by a hurricane and the town you've grown up in is almost unrecognizable.
SBC relief work expands to 6 states; Jeanne targets E. Coast
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| Holding on Alicia Rosas holds her six-day-old baby Juliana and a hot meal provided by Oklahoma Baptist volunteers at the Olive Baptist Church feeding station in Pensacola, Fla. Photo by Ken Touchton/Florida Baptist Convention |
Disaster relief officials now are keeping an eye on the fourth hurricane in a month to threaten Florida as Jeanne, several hundred miles east of the Bahamas, is migrating toward the southeast coast where it could hit early next week.
“The last few days, we’ve prayed Jeanne wouldn’t come ashore at all, but now it appears to be headed for the east coast of Florida or the Carolinas,” said Jim Burton, disaster relief director of the North American Mission Board, which coordinates the SBC’s response.
Hurricane’s force eased by relief ministry to young & old
SEBASTIAN, Fla. (BP)--Two-year-old Bobby Berry is too hot to take a nap. A rash has sprung up on his little body and he tells his mom he doesn't want to eat.
Disaster relief flexibility lauded by Red Cross official
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| Resuming relief
le With the threat of Hurricane Ivan lifted, American Red Cross worker Jack Ferrara (left) speaks with Florida Baptist Disaster Relief coordinators Tommy Thompson (center) and Dick Thrower about plans to begin cooking meals at First Baptist Church in Orange City, Fla. Photo by Joni B. Hannigan/Florida Baptist Witness |
Southern Baptists “have bent over backwards,” Jack Ferrara told the Florida Baptist Witness newsjournal in mid-September. “They’ve gone from flexibility to pure fluidness, and they are just so pliable to our needs.”
Ferrara, of Fort Lauderdale, who also is a Pentecostal youth minister, was in Deland to coordinate the redeployment of Florida Baptist Disaster Relief workers who closed down operations around the state when Hurricane Ivan began threatening the entire region.
1,000-plus Southern Baptist volunteers help hurricane victims
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| Impromptu drive-through In fast-food fashion, residents of the Flomaton, Ala., area receive meals prepared by Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers at Little Escambia Baptist Church. Photo by Stanley Leary |
Jim Burton, director of the North American Mission Board's volunteer mobilization team, said NAMB's Disaster Relief Operations Center near Atlanta has received reports of people standing in lines extending five blocks from a mobile kitchen unit stationed at Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla.
After Ivan, churches shine light amid storm’s destruction
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| Lost homes Hurricane Ivan damaged thousands of houses like this one across Florida and the southeast. Many houses were destroyed while others were damaged by the wind and rains. Photo by Sherri Brown |
"This is the worst [storm damage] that any of the old-timers can remember," Ron Lentine, pastor of Myrtle Grove Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., told Baptist Press. "We've never seen this kind of tree damage. They tell us it may be weeks before we get power and water. But in the midst of this disaster we can be a light."
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| Pressing on Betty Jones, center, prayed during a Sunday morning worship time at First Baptist Church in Flomaton, Ala. Two trees fell on her house as a result of Hurricane Ivan. Photo by Sherri Brown |
Lentine had been working with a team of church members preparing to travel to south Florida to help victims of Hurricanes Charley and Frances. They never made it.
"I guess God had other plans for us. Now we're helping our own community," he said. "If through this disaster we can reach people who otherwise have hardened their hearts toward God, then God has made this redemptive."
Wind damage and flooding from Hurricane Ivan left much of the Florida Panhandle in pieces. Further north, tornadoes were spawned by the storm. More than 500,000 people have no power, no water and no phone service.
Disaster Relief volunteers flood into Alabama & Florida in wake of Hurricane Ivan’s path
ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--More than 400 Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers from nine state Baptist conventions were serving hot meals and clearing debris Sept. 18 across the Gulf Coast regions of Alabama and Florida as recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ivan began in earnest.
N.M. team finally gets chance to cook for hurricane victims
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| Ready to take note A retired newspaperman, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer W.S. Morris from Carlsbad, N.M., keeps a notebook tucked into his shirt pocket at all times. He will celebrate his 76th birthday Sept. 19 in Florida helping to feed victims of Hurricane Frances. Photo by Joni B. Hannigan/Florida Baptist Witness |
Evacuated from their post at an American Red Cross kitchen Sept. 9 before they could cook even one meal in Boynton Beach, Fla., the New Mexico team opted to wait out Ivan in Orlando to remain available for redeployment.
The seven-member team joined up with Red Cross workers and other local volunteers at a Red Cross mobile kitchen in Fort Pierce to cook, wash dishes or do “whatever” is needed.
