3 pray for sunshine as
storm season starts

United Methodist News Service
Three United Methodists in particular are praying for mostly sunshine and blue skies along the Gulf Coast from June to November.
“I haven’t been looking at how many days until hurricane season starts,” said the Rev. Darryl Tate, executive director of the Louisiana Conference Storm Recovery Center, last week. “I am looking at how many days until it is over.”
Hurricane season began June 1 and continues through November.
Tate along with the Rev. Clyde Pressley, Alabama-West Florida Conference, and Ed Blakeslee, Mississippi Conference, lived through one of the worst hurricane seasons to hit the United States last summer as disaster response coordinators.
In the Louisiana Conference, 90 United Methodist churches were damaged, and 80 pastors were displaced.
In the Mississippi Conference, 48 churches were damaged, and six churches were destroyed beyond repair.
In the Alabama-West Florida Conference, Coden (Ala.) UMC was destroyed. Bayou La Batre and three other churches sustained considerable damage.
While coordinating his conference’s response, Tate dealt with the challenges of being a displaced pastor. His church, St. Luke’s UMC, New Orleans, and parsonage were flooded following Hurricane Katrina Aug. 29.
Pressley became Alabama-West Florida’s coordinator after Hurricane Ivan in 2004. He said people still needed help rebuilding from that storm. Hurricanes Dennis and Katrina just set them back even further.
Blakeslee, a member of Trinity UMC, Gulfport, Miss., and retiree from the Mississippi Power Co., said he has seen a lot of hurricanes come through his state. He counts them off: Betsy, Camille, Fredric, Elena, Georges.
“The sad part is I never had the vision this would happen,” he said of Katrina’s damage. “A lot of what I remember and love about this area is gone forever.”
All three men have learned hard lessons and are preparing churches and pastors for the next storm.
Pressley has met with four of the eight district superintendents in Alabama-West Florida to talk about preparing for a hurricane or other disaster.
“We talk to them about how to organize the church, how to respond immediately … how to communicate, how to take care of the homebound folks and how to safeguard their church records,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of optimism that everyone went back home and did what we said. That is what concerns us.”
During annual conference meetings, which began Sunday in both Alabama-West Florida and Louisiana, Tate and Pressley were to be making presentations on what happened last year and how to prepare for this year.
“On Monday night, we are going to have a Katrina-Rita party,” Tate said of the Louisiana Conference. “It will be a chance to let our hair down and just have a relaxing evening. Then on Tuesday afternoon, we share our plans and talk about the mission zone that has been declared in New Orleans.”
The plan designates seven mission zones in the city that will be directed by a clergy team. Thirty-eight churches are in the zones.
Disaster relief workers were also to be honored during the conference, Tate said.
Pressley was to make a presentation Monday. It would include suggestions about what individual churches can do.
“By that time, we will already be four days into the new hurricane season,” he noted.
Blakeslee is to meet with pastors and district superintendents in the next few days to talk about plans in case another storm hits Mississippi.
“Nobody in this country was prepared for a storm of this magnitude,” Blakeslee says of Katrina. “Based on what we learned, there are a lot of things we would do differently and faster.”
One of the things weighing heavily on his mind is the coming hot weather.
“It is already 92 degrees, and a lot of people are in those small FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) trailers,” he said.
Warehouses and modular buildings have been built in Mississippi to help with some of the problems encountered last year, when storage space and lodging for volunteers ran short, Blakeslee said.
Churches have been straining to house volunteers and still maintain their ministry. Construction of some dorms will take pressure off those churches, he said.