by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, October-November, 2005
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

THE GULF COAST: WITH FIVE DAYS WARNING...

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

Three years ago, when Hurricane Kenna slammed the Pacific Coast of Mexico, none of us who were living in the little town of Rincon de Guayabitos had much warning. Partly that was because Kenna, while building into a level five storm, kept changing directions. First it ran toward Cabo San Lucas and scared away the world leaders gathered there for an economic summit; then it veered northeast and executed the tropical gale’s rendition of a turn-around jump shot with Mazatlan as the backboard, before racing off on a southwesterly romp to the open sea; there the burly storm stopped, regrouped, reversed, and finally hurled itself onto the shore.

We didn’t have much warning. Just after 10 p.m. when it was certain that Kenna was barreling toward us, a scratchy loudspeaker mounted on a flatbed truck told people to go to higher ground. My husband and I had no transportation and no idea of where to go. Our friends Jose and Victoria phoned their friend Cristina who lived in the hills above town. Cristina invited us all to come stay with her. At 11 p.m. Roger was in a phone booth leaving a message for our daughter that the hurricane was coming and we were evacuating, and we would be fine. At 11:15 we were standing in the misty rain with Jose and Victoria and their children and their dog, delighted to see headlights coming up the street. Jose stopped his neighbor’s truck, spoke with the neighbor, and came back to report that the neighbor would return for us after he had delivered his spouse and children to the home of some cousins and take us to Cristina’s house. We waited. Half an hour later the neighbor returned, and we went up into the hills.

During that drive through the silent and deserted town, I gave thanks for these friends of a month’s duration who would not have thought of leaving us on our own. I gave thanks for the grace and timing and community connection that afforded us a place to stay and the means to get there. And I was certain that the level of emergency planning and response in the United States was such that hurricane evacuation in this country would never take place so haphazardly. My thanks were well-founded. My certainty was not.

Hurricane Katrina gave us five days’ warning. The evacuation orders were issued. People left town. We saw the cars thick on freeways where all lanes were designated northbound. Full planes flew out before the airports closed. With five days’ warning, I assumed that there would be busses and trucks going through the cities and towns where people are well-acquainted with the force of hurricanes, picking up those who were reluctant to leave their homes, who were too sick to leave on their own, who had no transportation of their own, who had no homes and had not heard that they must go. I assumed that, with five days’ warning, there would be time to implement a well-coordinated plan, phoning cities a hundred miles inland to say, “We have evacuees. How many can you shelter?” With five days’ warning, I assumed that the shelters would be stocked with food and water, beds, blankets, and medical supplies sufficient to meet the needs of those displaced by storm. I assumed too much. Without even raising the question of levees sufficiently strong to protect a city built below sea level at the convergence of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.

Major hurricanes bring devastation, destruction, disruption of life and livelihood whenever they strike human habitation. But with Katrina the human suffering was amplified by the hollow space which coordination and oversight should have occupied.

There was no overview, no administrative hub. No plan for the basics of communication within the disaster zone. No awareness, for days, of 20,000 people stranded in the New Orleans Convention Center. No way to for a desperate mother to find medical help for her sick baby than to hand the infant through the window of an overcrowded bus as it pulled away. No way out for people slogging through water neck-deep and laden with sewage and chemical contaminants. Our English words “administration” and “ministry” share a common Latin root, which means “service.” Administrators and ministers are called to serve. In our Judeo-Christian tradition, that service is birthed in compassion, and comes forth as righteousness—the ability and the desire to make things right for people; to help the needy survive today, and to give them hope for the future.

The county sheriff in Mississippi who was interviewed just after the hurricane had struck, displayed righteousness. He seemed both calm and shaken, as he said, “I know we will have evacuees coming in, and we need to care of them, and we will take care of them—I just don’t know how.”

We heard righteousness through the words of the mayor of Houston, and the governor of Michigan welcoming and embracing the evacuees coming to them; in the actions of city officials in San Jose and San Francisco who prepared for the arrival of persons displaced by the hurricane, in disregard of warnings that these cities might not be reimbursed for expenses if they failed to get prior approval from FEMA; from the creative imaginations of those who anticipated children’s need for the comfort of teddy bears and those who spread the tarmac with new rubber sandals for evacuees as they de-planed.

When the murky floodwaters make it clear that age, poverty, and race were fatally linked to one’s chances for survival in New Orleans, must we not cry out for the righteousness that is an everflowing stream?

We yearn for righteousness. Righteousness—at the core of our urban planning and disaster response operations, at the heart of our economic policies and energy expenditures, at the center of our justice system and our decisions about war and peace.

Righteousness which “rescues the needy when they cry out…..restores life to the weak….and deems their blood too precious to be shed.” [Ps . 72: 12-14]

                                                                                                          ~ Mary Susan

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