Volunteers Keep Returning to Storm-struck Areas

By Linda Bloom

Date: March 6, 2000

This house, one of tens of thousands in North Carolina damaged as a result of Hurricane Floyd, rose with floodwaters and settled atop the family truck. Photo by Dave Gatley/FEMA News Photo

In North Carolina, the Rev. Butch Huffman has found the key to ensuring a continuous pool of volunteers for rebuilding homes damaged by Hurricane Floyd: get them to come just once. "When a team comes, they will usually come back," he explained. "Once you come and you see the extent of it [damage], you can't go away and forget it."

After North Carolina was devastated by Floyd and other storms last fall, the United Methodist North Carolina Annual Conference established four regional offices and 15 satellite areas to coordinate the denomination's relief and recovery efforts. "At each of these places, they may be working anywhere within a 30-mile radius," said Huffman, who is coordinator of volunteers in mission for the conference.

The amount of damage and length of time floodwaters remained in homes varied from community to community, so work is being done in all phases of recovery. Some families are waiting for a buyout, others are finally able to clean out their homes, and still others are back in homes that have been completely gutted and rebuilt.

As of the end of February, Huffman said, about 11,000 homes were in the buyout process, another 20,000 were awaiting minor repairs "where you could go in and do everything in one day" and 6,000 to 7,000 homes required a major overhaul. That kind of work would take a team of six to 10 people about three weeks to accomplish per house, he noted.

So far, the North Carolina Conference has welcomed volunteer teams from 29 different states. "Some come for one day, some come for a week, some come for a month," he said.

Barbara Tripp, director of recovery operations for the conference, said 138 teams already have been scheduled for 2000. "Once we assign them, most people fall in love with the families and the communities and they keep coming back," she added.

The Western North Carolina Conference has established housing for 100 volunteers in the Tarboro area, according to the Rev. Jack Owenby, director of volunteer response ministries. The volunteer teams also encompass Presbyterians, Mennonites and members of a few other denominations.

The rebuilding effort there began in earnest on Jan. 5. "Right now, we're running 200 volunteers a day," Owenby said. "By the middle of March, we should have 26 homes rebuilt, with the families back in them."

The goal is to complete close to 150 houses a year and finish the recovery effort in two to two and a half years. "If the volunteers hold up at the present rate, it may be sooner," he said.

In Virginia, United Methodists have focused their recovery efforts on Franklin City and the surrounding counties of Isle of Wight, Southampton and Suffolk. The Virginia Conference Disaster Response Team has established a permanent office at High Street United Methodist Church in Franklin.

About 1,600 volunteers — including repeat volunteers -- had invested 24,762 hours in recovery work as of the end of February, according to the Rev. Frank Jennings, team coordinator. The average has been about 300 volunteers a month.

"In February, we exceeded that easily," he said. "Just in two Saturdays alone, we had 190 people."

About 27 families have been able to return to their homes "due to some type of effort from us," he said, and another 25 houses are in different phases of rebuilding. The effort involves strong ecumenical cooperation and has gained enough confidence in the community that the United Methodist agency was the first to receive grants from private sector funding for residential rehabilitation.

Bloom is news director of United Methodist News Service's New York office.