MONTOURSVILLE, Pa. – With water rising a foot every 15
minutes, Noel Carr and his young son Jerico grabbed a few possessions, the dog
and five pet chickens before abandoning their home to historic flooding from
Tropical Storm Lee.
“By this time the water was over our heads and we had no more access to our
home,” Carr said Monday, four days after the flooding receded from
Montoursville, Pa.
Fellow members of First Baptist Church in Williamsport, of the Baptist
Convention of Pennsylvania/South Jersey, had placed gravel to give Carr access
through foot-deep mud to his home. Church members cleaned and gutted the house’s
flood-damaged first floor and thrown out ruined furniture, appliances and
clothing.
Carr, his wife Fawn and their 8-year-old son were in church Sunday, full of
gratitude.
“It was very important that we see the people and start to thank them for what
they’ve done,” Carr said.
“We see (God’s) hand working in this,” he added. “We’ve had a chance to
minister to people that we would never have been able to minister to,
especially my neighbors.”
Such ministry, both physical and spiritual, is the thrust of Southern Baptist
relief and recovery workers who are stretched thin to meet the needs of many in
the Northeast where Tropical Storm Lee brought heavy rains to areas that were
still flooded from Hurricane Irene.
“What a blessing,” Carr said after some 20 members of his church, five of them
trained disaster relief volunteers, responded to his need. “Currently, we’re
still homeless. We don’t know where we’re going to live.” Carr hopes to rebuild
as the church helps his wife and son secure temporary housing while he lives on
his property in a camper trailer.
Kenton Hunt, Carr’s pastor and BCPSJ recovery coordinator, was busy ministering
to Pennsylvania communities in need while also helping several families in the
Williamsport his own congregation whose homes flooded.
“The damage in Pennsylvania is huge. We’re getting requests from all over the
place,” Hunt said. “This is going to be huge.”
The adjacent Baptist Convention of New York is busy responding to needs in
Binghamton, where more than 10,000 residents were evacuated because of the
flooding Susquehanna River, the same source of flooding in Pennsylvania.
“It literally flooded the whole city,” said Mike Flannery, BCNY director of
disaster relief. “The good part is the water is receding quickly. The challenge
is getting mud-out teams from other communities.”
The BCNY is shifting its focus from Washingtonville and Schenectady to
Binghamton, Flannery said. The feeding unit at Trinity Baptist Church near
Schenectady, staffed by volunteers from Kentucky, will prepare meals for
Binghamton through today (Sept. 12), while the Washingtonville feeding unit
transfers to Davis College in Johnson City to begin serving Binghamton on
Tues., Sept. 13.
A mud-out team from Somerset, Va., has responded to Flannery’s call for
recovery help, but more teams are needed.
“What we’re trying to do is organize college students to do the mud-out in
Binghamton,” Flannery said. More than 100 Davis College students are being
trained in clean-up work in hopes of getting mud-out equipment and supplies.
Flannery will speak Sept. 13 to some 30 cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at
West Point, hoping to mobilize them to help.
The Baptist Convention of Ohio has responded with volunteers for the feeding
unit in Johnson City, replacing a team from the Pearl River Baptist Association
in Mississippi who have returned home after serving in Washingtonville.
Sunday in Pennsylvania, the BCPSJ stationed a feeding unit in Hazelton that
prepared 3,000 meals that night with the help of local volunteers and a group
from Virginia. The BCPSJ is still assessing flood damage and need. Two churches
in the BCPSJ have requested help, Hunt said.
“The problem for us is many of the volunteers we’ve called who would respond
are affected by the floods themselves,” Hunt said.
Just after Hurricane Irene, the BCPSJ mobilized two mud-out units to clean
about 40 homes in Noxen Township, Pa., only to have Lee reflood the homes.
“It’s a little disconcerting,” Hunt said of Lee coming so closely behind Irene.
“You take a step at a time. (You) keep trusting in the Lord, not only for
physical strength, but for spiritual direction in how to proceed.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Diana Chandler is a freelance writer in New
Orleans.)