In the span of a week, my church went from fine as it ever was to submerged under seven feet of water at street level (and more in the basement) to filled with residual silt, slime, and flood crud. Not the happy life-giving silt of the ancient Nile, but waters filled with manure, fertilizer, overturned Dumpsters, street oils, boathouse fuels, bird seed, bacteria, anything caught in the path of the powerful river waters.
Our church basement and adjoining office and preschool buildings had to be gutted to the studs. Nearly all papers were unsalvageable. Metal items and plastics without crevices could be cleaned, but porcelain, fabrics, wood, plaster, anything absorbent had to be thrown out.
The sanctuary needed only plaster removed about a foot high, around the lowest parts of the sanctuary.
We had over 200 people from 29 different groups work over 1600 man-hours to get the wet stuff out to the curbs and prepare for the professional drying and biocide.
And now we wait for a plan, for funding, not knowing if our dwindling congregation can afford to stay in this location.
This ATC represents the Creative Mom Podcast theme Here to There (to Where?) as a journey through time at a fixed location. Meanwhile, our congregation has travelled from here to "there," meeting with another congregation across the river.
I also used this card for the Project Spectrum project. I had another project in mind, but didn't finish in time, so I sent these instead. I admit it doesn't use the colors of purple, blue, and black, but it is a testament to the awesome power of water on the move. One building out of nine miles around here and across the Midwest this summer, and now into fall, the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, too, are again hit by the force of water.
Friday, September 05, 2008
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