Mississippi Episcopalians Mobilize as Gulf Coast Braces for Ivan
Episcopal News Service. September 15, 2004 [091504-1]
Lauren Auttonberry, , Director of Communications for the Diocese of Mississippi
As more than one million people from the New Orleans and Mobile areas of the Gulf Coast surge north, churches and facilities in the Diocese of Mississippi are preparing to provide traditional Mississippi hospitality for displaced brothers and sisters.
The Duncan M. Gray Camp and Conference Center, near Canton, received 30 displaced CREDO participants on Tuesday afternoon. The conference, scheduled at the Solomon Episcopal Conference Center in southeast Louisiana, had to be cancelled when mandatory evacuations were imposed early Tuesday morning.
"Incredibly, as each new demand for refugee space has come in, another scheduled client has cancelled their reservation," said Bill Horne, Executive Director, Gray Center. "We've been able, so far, to accommodate every request for space we received. At full capacity, which we will be at by lunch Thursday, we will have over 250 Ivan Refugees and relief support personnel."
Camp Bratton-Green is hosting nearly 140 Entergy utility employees and 50 Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Corps of Engineers employees as a staging point for emergency repairs and post-hurricane cleanup.
Churches from McComb in south central Mississippi across to historic Natchez, north to Greenwood and west to Vicksburg, are setting up spaces to serve as feeding sites, shelters and points of contact for the community. Numerous emails are being sent throughout the diocesan family with offers of spare bedrooms, guest houses and vacant rental properties. Hotels and campgrounds surrounding the Interstates 20 and 55 are filled to critical mass from Shreveport, Louisiana, across to Birmingham, Alabama, and north as far as Memphis, Tennessee.
Clergy in Mississippi are securing their churches, collecting important items and making the long journey north.
"This is my first hurricane," said the Rev. Edward O'Connor, rector of St. Peter's by-the-Sea, Gulfport, Mississippi. "As I gathered together important things and holy things -- the parish register, the key to the ambry, my vestments, the insurance file -- I also stopped and took our mission statement off the wall. To me, the mission statement is most important; we are a people of joy, as found in our Baptismal Covenant, because we come to build and rebuild one another in Christ."
At 4 p.m. CDT (5 p.m. EDT), the center of Hurricane Ivan was about 125 miles south of the Alabama coastline, moving northward at 14 miles per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center. On the forecast track the center of Ivan is expected to reach the coastline very late tonight or early Thursday.
Louisiana, east to Apalachicola, Florida, are under mandatory evacuation. Landfall is expected near Mobile but could shift course and hit anywhere from eastern Louisiana across the Florida panhandle. The storm remains a vicious category 4 hurricane with sustained winds above 130 miles per hour.
Displaced Episcopalians looking for shelter in Mississippi can contact any local church for information on available housing and churches with shelter facilities. A list of all Mississippi churches, with phone numbers, is available at http://www.dioms.org/church_find/churchsearch.html.
Episcopal Relief and Development has made available a bulletin insert to help victims of Hurricane Ivan. A jpeg and pdf version of the insert is available for download at http://www.er-d.org/anewpubs.htm. Please encourage your parish to make copies and use it in this Sunday's service leaflet.