Saturday, April 9, 2005

Spring break for the Shearons means loading up the kids and heading for Florida --- not to baste on a beach but to work up a tarpaper-and-shingle sweat patching the holes in some stranger's roof.
"What better way to spend time with your family?" asked Mark Shearon, an Atlanta plating company owner and father of five who lives in Douglasville. He's one of more than 140,000 volunteers --- many of them from faith-based organizations across the metro area, including Gwinnett --- who have worked more than 6 million hours to aid the victims of the four hurricanes that raked Florida last summer.
Florida is still what one relief worker called "The Blue Tarp State." That's a reference to the estimated 21,000 homes that still have tarps serving as at least part of their roofs, according to FEMA officials. Mostly, these are homes of the elderly, the poor and the uninsured. There are an estimated 15,000 families still living in FEMA trailer homes that were supposed to be for temporary shelter.
"The church volunteers are a critical element in the long-term recovery," said Ken Skalitzky, volunteer agency liaison for the Southeastern region of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Coordinating the volunteer response falls to people like Bob Tribble, Georgia director of Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters, which is made up primarily of church-based disaster relief agencies. Tribble is also disaster response coordinator for the Norcross-based Lutheran Disaster Response. While some of the member groups focus on first-wave relief operations, most of the church groups know they'll be most needed when the other disaster agencies are gone, he said.
"We like to say we're in there for the long haul, till the last tarp is pulled down," Tribble said.
Tribble estimated that at least 100 churches from metro Atlanta have sent volunteer crews to assist in recovery efforts in Florida, with more than a dozen of those coming from Gwinnett.
Taken together, the Florida storms represent "the largest disaster FEMA's ever worked," Tribble said. The lingering damage is emotional as well as physical, he said. Church agencies around Florida this year plan to hold about 100 "Camp Noahs" --- programs designed to help children cope with the psychological traumas from the hurricanes.
Fred Potter went to the small town of Gonzalez, near Pensacola, in February with volunteers from Snellville United Methodist Church. He said it was "stunning" to see how many homes still needed major repairs.
"I don't think most people really understood the extent of the damage," Potter said, adding that his church planned to send another crew in May.
Many of the people with damaged homes simply can't afford private contractors, and even if they could, the waiting periods in some areas can run more than two years. "Some of the people seemed to be resigned to spending the rest of their lives in a house with a blue tarp for a roof," he said.
Potter said they were referred by local church officials to a 60-year-old woman who lives by herself and whose finances are strained from paying her chronically ill son's medical expenses. Her porch was destroyed and roof damaged in a storm, and she didn't have any prospects of getting the repairs done.
"I was at a complete loss as to what I would do after Ivan," the woman wrote in an e-mail to the Snellville church. "I called my church for help, and was soon informed that your church was coming."
After a full day of work by the volunteer crew, the woman had a new, safe porch and a repaired roof. "All of them (the volunteers) are excellent representatives of what God wants every one of us to be like," the woman wrote.
That's precisely the type of connection faith-based volunteers are trying to make, said Owen Skinner, missions minister at Snellville UMC. The work trip was a way of putting their Christian faith into practice, he said. "Jesus said, 'If you have two cloaks, give one to your neighbor,' " he said.
Marian Sortore, of DeSoto County, Fla., discontinued her studies to become a Methodist minister in order to take a position as disaster manager for Methodist relief agencies in a nine-county area in Florida.
The 41 Long Term Relief Committees that have been established in Florida are nonprofit companies that can raise funds and provide relief to storm victims, she said.
There have never been so many such committees set up after a natural disaster in America, she said, and most of these committees will be in operation for years to come.
Debris from storm damage is still sitting in huge piles in some places, she said, and people are still living in houses that should be labeled uninhabitable.
"Who's going to help these people?" Sortore said.
The church-based volunteers are doing their part and more. Mark Shearon said he witnessed a moving testimony after Hurricane Ivan, at a church in Gulf Breeze, Fla.
The pastor of a large church was able to keep his church kitchen operating, even though electrical power was out and his large coolers had been moved several feet by the storm. The church kitchen fed hundreds of people daily.
One day shortly after the storm, a local health department worker came to the church and told the pastor his kitchen would have to close, since the lack of refrigeration might lead to food contamination. The pastor ignored her and kept on coming.
The next day, the health worker repeated her demand. The pastor refused again, saying, "I cannot quit and I will not quit. My God commands me to feed the hungry and house the homeless."
The next day, the health department worker returned with her daughter. She said she and the child had not eaten for days, and could they please have something to eat.
DISASTER RELIEF EFFORTS
Major denominational groups involved in disaster relief include:
> Church World Service, 770-879-9016
> Episcopal Disaster Relief and Development, 770-469-8551
> Georgia Baptist Convention, 770-936-5259
> Lutheran Services of Georgia, 404-725-6328
> Presbyterian Disaster Response Officer, 706-235-8561
> United Methodist Church, North Georgia Conference, Disaster Response Ministry, 678-533-1443

BY THE NUMBERS
Damage statistics and volunteer relief contributions for the 2004 hurricanes
Number of volunteers: 140,000
Number of volunteer hours worked: 6 million
Value of volunteer services: $102 million
Number of meals served by volunteers: 14.4 million
Number of homes destroyed: 5,847
Number of homes seriously damaged: 22,000
Percentage of homes in Florida affected by storms: 25
Source: FEMA