Episcopal Volunteers to Aid in Post-flood Decontamination of Grand Forks
Episcopal News Service. May 9, 1997 [97-1754]
(ENS) When Laddie Tlucek, the rector of St. Paul's, Grand Forks, returned to his church after the entire city had been evacuated due to flooding, he discovered furniture floating in the parlor and the basements of both the church and education building full of black water contaminated with sewage, agricultural chemicals and petroleum products.
On the streets, "It's like someone took a mixer and splattered debris everywhere," he said. "And out in people's front yards, you'd think it was a giant yard sale, but its damaged and contaminated furniture that's going to be hauled away."
Through grants from the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief, private donations and volunteer work crews, the Episcopal Dioceses of North Dakota and Minnesota are preparing to assist in cleaning up after a flood so extensive that it left virtually no resident of the two cities unaffected. "We're all victims and we're all trying to help each other," Tlucek said.
"You go into Grand Forks and you see a million port-a-potties," he reported. "We have no sewers, no city water, no telephones, and they can't turn on the power until they have inspections because there's danger of electrocution."
"Contamination is a serious health problem in the flood area," noted Bishop Andrew Fairfield of North Dakota. "If you walk through the streets you can tell; it stinks." Fairfield emphasized that volunteers must receive the Red Cross training in decontamination before beginning the work of "ripping out contaminated sheet rock and applying bleach and triphosphates, power washers and elbow grease" to the filth saturated into every affected structure.
In addition to a $25,000 grant from the fund, Fairfield reported over $48,000 in donations to the diocese in response to flooding. The fund grant is being held in reserve against long-term need, but Fairfield has created a committee composed of representatives from the five Episcopal churches in the Red River Valley to determine how to allocate the private donations and supervise volunteer work crews.
Sandra Holmberg, a Fargo priest and part-time bishop's assistant who is leading that team, said that she's received calls from every part of the country from Episcopalians who want to volunteer in the cleanup. She called this a "gracious response" but cautioned volunteers preparing to travel to Grand Forks to arrive "self-sufficient" and not rely on the overburdened flood victims for food or bedding. The Diocese of Minnesota, which has had flooding near Minneapolis as well as along the North Dakota border, also received a $25,000 grant from the Fund and has been working with the Diocese of North Dakota to provide relief in the Red River Valley.
While the cleanup began in Grand Forks, the crest of the northward flowing Red River of the North had reached Winnipeg, Manitoba, where it threatened to overwhelm dikes that stood a mere two blocks from the diocesan office of the Anglican Church of Canada's diocese of Rupert's Land. Administrative assistant Carol Thropp said the office was empty because everyone else was loading sandbags onto dikes and watching for breaches. Bishop Patrick Lee of Rupert's Land had gone to make sure his house was still secure.
Like Grand Forks and East Grand Forks this year, Winnipeg was devastated by flood in 1950 and, in the decade following, constructed a 48 kilometer diversion called the Red River Floodway which reroutes half of the surging river's water during flood emergencies. Such large scale redesign is inevitable for Grand Forks as well. "It won't be the same," Tlucek said. "The whole town will be changed. Some places have been declared nonlivable, whole neighborhoods -- they'll be turned into green spaces. And the downtown, where there was the big fire, that will be totally different."
"It's a chance for the city to reconsider its future and it's a chance for us to look at our ministry and decide how we want to proceed," he said. "But it also reminds me of how important ordinary, everyday things are. We have to try to approximate those things right now, then we'll be doing OK."