Assessment follows hurricanes
Jefferson church goes to work after flooding
Recovery work after hurricanes Ike and Gustav is being monitored for Oklahoma Conference by Richard Norman, coordinator of disaster response and domestic missions in the Volunteers In Mission Office.
Damage caused by the storms extended into Oklahoma, where heavy rainfall caused flooding in the region that includes Enid District. Fairview UMC Pastor Rich Redinger reported about 100 homes damaged there, according to Rev. Norman.
Worship on Sept. 14 was cancelled at the Jefferson and Renfrow churches, both near Medford, according to Pastor Sandy Reeves. The Jefferson church was flooded, and high waters blocked roads around Renfrow.
“The damage was just to the floors (at Jefferson UMC). It’s all very doable repairs,” said Rev. Reeves. “We think we got about 6 inches of water across the whole building.”
She said the members started cleanup Sunday evening, as soon as the waters receded. “As soon as people were able to drive in with their trucks, they came. It’s been a lot of picking up debris and stuff like that. The church has a lot of very hard workers,” she said.
By Sept. 21, “we had church as normal as possible,” she said.
The members went into action even before the heavy rains arrived. “This has happened before,” Reeves said. “They saw it coming, and we quickly went in and raised everything as fast as we could.”
The Jefferson church is in a rural setting: “the grain mill, the church, and about six or seven houses,” Reeves said.
The congregation helped her evacuate from the parsonage, too, next door. It was not damaged, Reeves said. She spent her birthday weekend with relatives.
The church participates in a global mission project, called PETs, that provides individual transportation vehicles to people who are disabled. Reeves said the flooding did not affect its stock of parts and model PETs.
To find out more about hurricane recovery work, contact Norman, 800-231-4166, 405-530-2032, Rnorman@okumc.org. Online: www.okvim.org.
