The United Church of Canada/L'Église Unie du Canada3250 Bloor St. West, Suite 300
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Website: www.united-church.ca
The United Church of Canada/L'Église Unie du CanadaDonations as of February 2006: CDN$258,154
UPDATE: Monday, September 26, 2005
Coming on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, where many chose to ride out the storm with deadly consequences, the news coming from the aftermath of Hurricane Rita appears to be, for the most part, not as bad as was feared.
"As bad as it could have been, we came out of this in pretty good shape," said Texas Governor Rick Perry, who called the lack of widespread fatalities in the wake of Hurricane Rita "miraculous." By Sunday night, just two deaths had been blamed directly on Rita.
Officials credit the countless lives saved to the massive evacuation last week of some three million people from the Texas coast.
In the major Texas city of Houston, which was spared the brunt of Rita, officials set up a plan for a voluntary, staggered, "orderly migration." People from different areas said they were heading home Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday to avoid the massive gridlock that had accompanied the exodus out. By Sunday night, a long stream of charter buses, cars, and sport utility vehicles clogged the southbound lanes of Interstate 45 into Houston.
Yet damage to property was still extensive in many communities, particularly the marshy towns along the Texas-Louisiana line. In Cameron Parish, just across the state line from Texas and in the path of Rita's harshest winds, fishing communities were reduced to splinters, with concrete slabs the only evidence that homes once stood there, according to The Globe and Mail (Monday, September 26). Debris was strewn for miles by water or wind.
"In Cameron, Louisiana, there's really hardly anything left. Everything is just obliterated," said Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco. She has asked the federal government for $34 billion (U.S.) to aid in storm recovery. Petrochemical plants on the Texas coast that supply a quarter of the nation's gasoline suffered only a glancing blow, with just one major plant facing weeks of repairs.
Along the central Louisiana coastline, Rita's heavy rains and storm-surge flooding pushed water up to 2.7 metres in homes, and into fields of sugarcane and rice. Some re-flooding did occur in New Orleans from levee breaks but was isolated mostly to areas already destroyed and deserted by Hurricane Katrina. And contrary to dire forecasts, Rita and its heavy rains moved quickly north instead of stalling over the South for days and dumping a predicted 64 centimetres of rain. Among the deaths attributed to Rita were a person killed in north central Mississippi when a tornado spawned by the hurricane overturned a mobile home, and an east Texas man struck by a fallen tree. Two dozen evacuees were killed in a fatal bus fire near Dallas before the storm hit.
Efforts continue to provide relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated areas of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi August 29. For more information on the affects of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, and for information on general relief, recovery, and reconstruction efforts, visit the following websites:
Hurricane Katrina, a Category 4 hurricane, stormed ashore the U.S. Gulf Coast 10 days ago with extraordinarily strong winds and heavy rains. Extensive wind damage and flooding occurred along the projected track of the storm from the Gulf Coast to the Ohio River Valley. Katrina first crossed southern Florida, resulting in nine deaths and extensive flooding. Then, in coastal areas of Louisiana, large sections of New Orleans and other urban areas were flooded. Property damage has been extensive.
It has taken several days to assess the number of casualties in New Orleans, and exact numbers still aren't known. But authorities believe that as many as 10,000 lives may have been lost. While local residents and area authorities knew that Hurricane Katrina would be a force to be reckoned with, it seems that its final fury was more than had been anticipated.
So severe is the damage in some areas of the Gulf Coast that it will take months and years of recovery and reconstruction efforts. The mayor of New Orleans, for example, has said that most of the city has been destroyed. The pain experienced by those now grieving the loss of loved ones and friends, of course, can never be entirely repaired.
Tragically, many who survived the hurricane have suffered enormously awaiting rescue, some living for days without food and water on rooftops surrounded by contaminated water metres deep. Many Americans have criticized authorities, the U.S. government in particular, for the delays. President Bush himself has referred to the levels of disaster preparedness and rescue and relief coordination as "unacceptable" and has promised an investigation. As TV and newspaper coverage over the past weekend revealed, Americans are wondering how it is possible that in a country like the United States, with its tremendous resources and capacity, a disaster response initiative could apparently go so wrong. Fortunately, over the past two days, rescue and relief operations appear to have picked up considerably.
It seems that those most adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina are the Gulf Coast's impoverished people. As Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine has written, those most affected are the poor who live in poorly built buildings, in plains and valleys that are first affected by flooding, and in overcrowded neighbourhoods, who have no cars or other means to evacuate, and who are the least likely to have home and health insurance coverage. A Sojourners article by Wes Granberg-Michaelson
*, general secretary, Reformed Church in America, reflects on whether the destructive impact of Hurricane Katrina is an act of God or rooted in policies that deepen and perpetuate poverty and damage the natural environment.
The Rev. John L. McCullough, executive director of Church World Service, a major American ecumenical aid and development agency, said his organization "is particularly concerned about the plight of what we anticipate to be a high percentage of poor people, the elderly, and other vulnerable populations throughout the affected Gulf Coast area and beyond." McCullough added, "Stories of individuals who had to stay in New Orleans in their homes because they couldn't afford to evacuate personify the crisis."
KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, of which the United Church is a member, has issued a call for prayer and solidarity* that identifies not only the poor but also "people of colour who are bearing the brunt of suffering in Louisiana today."
According to environmental groups, the loss of coastal marshlands that buffer New Orleans from flooding and storm surges may have worsened the impact of Hurricane Katrina. In the past, the region's wetlands have served as a natural buffer that slows hurricanes down as they come in from the Gulf of Mexico and helps protect New Orleans from storms. Similarly, the cutting down of coastal mangrove swamps in Southeast Asia is thought to have worsened the impact of the tsunami that occurred last December.
Experts say the construction of levees along the Mississippi River Delta has hastened the decline of wetland vegetation along the coast by preventing these ecosystems from receiving the floodwater and mud that they need to survive. Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the Gulf coast, explains in an interview with American Public Radio that the hurricane can now move closer to the city before decreasing, so that the city is in effect moving closer to the Gulf each year.
America's Wetland, a Baton Rouge organization, estimates that more than 1,900 square miles of the Louisiana have disappeared since the 1930s due to development and the construction of levees and canals. This, coupled with the loss of barrier islands and stands of natural vegetation, has made the New Orleans area more susceptible to storm surges. Sharon Begley, a science columnist for The Wall Street Journal, notes that studies have shown that for every square mile of wetlands lost, storm surges rise by one foot.
Global warming may only make the situation worse, with rising sea levels and warmer seas that will fuel ever stronger storms.
Churches and faith-based relief agencies in the United States are working urgently and diligently to respond to the disaster. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR)* and the ecumenical Church World Service (CWS)* are two such organizations. Church World Service has launched a fundraising appeal for survivors of Hurricane Katrina. It anticipates what may be the largest U.S. relief operation in its history.
Last week, CWS's disaster response specialists met with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) officials via telephone conferences, along with partners in the faith community and state Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOADs) to identify material resource needs and storm-affected areas where CWS will concentrate its efforts.
In addition to providing emergency aid following domestic disasters, CWS specializes in assisting in the development of community-based, long-term recovery organizations that are established in affected areas to help vulnerable populations and those with unmet needs.
"With such catastrophic damage," says McCullough. "It will be a while before we know the full extent of lives lost and material destruction, but we can be sure that recovery will take a very, very long time."
CWS will also respond on request in other states affected by Katrina, including Florida, where its domestic disaster recovery liaisons helped more than 40 communities develop capacity in long-term recovery during the 2004 hurricane season.
The United Church has written letters to both UNMOR and CWS to offer our thoughts and prayers and moral support.
* and CWS* websites to stay abreast of their energetic efforts to respond to the disaster. UMCOR and CWS are large agencies with a great deal of capacity to raise funds for hurricane relief from their constituents across the U.S. Many other churches and church organizations in the U.S. are also raising funds for hurricane relief. For more information please contact:
Gary Kenny
The following prayer was written by A.H. Harry Oussoren, Executive Minister for the Support to Local Ministries Unit of the General Council Office. It can be used as a standalone prayer on Sunday, or for printing in a bulletin for private devotional or small group use:
Holy and mysterious One, we look at your creation with awe and wonder, and now with terror. Yet again we see the power of wind and water breaking through, destroying, crippling, killing.
We lament the suffering, the loss, the pain, the death.
We pray for your sons and daughters in the southern coast states of America. We see their desperate plight and our hearts share your compassion for them. We grieve for the loss of life-human, animal, plant, and destroyed webs that nurtured well-being and contentment. Resurrection is hard to imagine in such devastation.
But death is never your last word. You keep providing signs of eternal life-as emergency and military personnel respond; as neighbours hold each other up; as faraway sisters and brothers respond with prayers, with money, with deeds of concern. By your love made real, let your transforming power restore, renew, and resurrect.
By faith, we know you will do this. We pray in and with Christ, the suffering and living One. Amen.
The following are several intercessions prepared by Support to Local Ministries' staff person Rob Dalgleish for inclusion in the Prayers of the People or Intercessions:
God whose love shines through a cross of suffering, we join our hearts with those who suffer the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Katrina:
God who seeks what is lost, we pray for those who waited for help and none came... God hear our prayer...
Compassionate one who weeps for God's people, we pray for those who mourn the loss of loved ones or who worry at bedsides for the life of another... God hear our prayer...
God of hope, we pray for the strength of those who reach out with helping hands to find and return to safety those who are still at risk in hotels, office buildings, hospitals, houses or to comfort those who are in anguish... God hear our prayer...
Repairer-of-the-Streets, we pray for those who have lost homes, whole neighbourhoods which are no more, or those who will lose their means to a living... God hear our prayer...
God of peace and justice, we pray for the American people who look on with horror at the devastation of their cities and on those who would take advantage of the vulnerable... God hear our prayer...
God of new life, we pray for ourselves that we might be moved to respond to the suffering of others wherever we see it, that together we might build a world where your love can live in every heart... God hear our prayer…
Faithful God, whose heart holds the anguish of all those who suffer, we pray in trust that you hear our prayers and are already answering in your love, through Christ who so loved the world. Amen.
Supported by donations to the Mission and Service Fund.
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