20 years after Hurricane Andrew, Isaac reminds Florida Baptists of Disaster Relief gains

20 years after Hurricane Andrew, Isaac reminds Florida Baptists of Disaster Relief gains

Storm nudged growth of now flourishing South Florida ethnic ministries

Sep 6, 2012
By BARBARA DENMAN
Florida Baptist Convention

MIAMI (FBC)?Carolyn McAdams wept as she walked into the sanctuary of First Baptist Church of Cutler Ridge 20 years ago. Though the walls were still standing, the ceiling had caved in, insulation hung in chunks, and several inches of water stood on the floor.?

?This is the only church I have?attended since I was a child,? she cried. ?My home is gone, my car is gone and I?ve lost my church.?

As Tropical Storm Isaac glanced off the Sunshine State on its trek towards Louisiana the last week of August, many Florida Baptists relived another storm which almost 20 years to the date whipped through Miami, demolishing everything in its path.?

Hurricane Andrew, a category 5?storm with 150 miles-per-hour sustained winds, struck the Miami-Dade metropolis Aug. 24, 1992. When it completed its march of terror overall at least 38 persons were dead, 250,000 persons were homeless and nearly a million without access to food,?drinking water, power, telephone service or basic commodities?for weeks. Economically, the storm wreaked an estimated $20 billion in losses and 85,000 jobs were lost in Florida.

For Florida Baptists, the hurricane damaged 35 churches?20 severely. Wayside Baptist Church in Kendall became the ?poster child? for the?destruction as news media far and wide focused on the gaping hole in its sanctuary wall. The harm to other churches may not have been as visible from the outside, but little was salvageable as the roofs crashed in and the storm?s rain and fury pelted pews, pulpits, carpets and walls.?

The livelihoods of thousands of church members were instantaneously cut off, crippling the existence of the churches. Many residents?and church members?left the region as trucks carrying all of their life?s possessions created an exodus on the turnpike and interstates.?

In 1992, the weekly budget of Glendale Baptist Church in Miami was $13,000. The week after Andrew, the offering was only $3,000 as nearly 99 percent of church members? homes were damaged. Other churches faced similar dilemmas.

Those who remained in the area battled for survival in a location with no food, water or in many cases, hope.?

Driving down Highway 1 south of Miami the day after the storm made landfall, Cecil Seagle dodged hanging electrical wires, detached stoplights, cement slabs, and shards of metal from buildings and roofs. He stopped at First Baptist Church of Perrine (now Christ Fellowship) to assess the damage and found walls intact but utter destruction throughout the sanctuary.?

?Desolation engulfed me when I took my first trek through the stricken area,? Seagle recalled. ?It looked like reports from a war zone. My first thought, ?Dear God, what do we do? What can we do? Where do we begin???

Serving as the Florida Baptists? Men?s Director, which included the disaster relief response, Seagle did not know on that day he would spend the next 30 months sleeping in a church gym and living in a recreational vehicle as he directed thousands of Baptist volunteers to help rebuild the region.?

RESCUE

Among Seagle?s first actions was stationing the Convention?s mobile mass feeding kitchen at First Baptist Cutler Ridge. It would soon be followed by 13 other Southern Baptist feeding units which eventually served more than two million meals to Andrew survivors during the relief stage.?

Southern Baptists blanketed the region and became known for their generosity and compassion. Years later Florida Baptist Max Mayfield, now retired as NOAA Hurricane Center?Director, recalled that the family of the Center?s Deputy Director Jerry Jarrell received their first hot meal post Andrew in a Southern Baptist feeding site.

Saying he often heard ?bragging? about Southern Baptist and other faith-based feeding programs, Mayfield said it ?was a great testimony for Baptists and the Cooperative Program.?

Immediately after the storm, South Florida residents in Cutler Ridge lined up half a city block for food from the mobile kitchen. The Convention developed commodity distribution onsite, sorting, organizing and giving away food, bottled water, ice, medical supplies, toiletries, diapers and household cleaning products.

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