Designated as an official American Red Cross shelter, a handful of South Louisiana churches have specified Kingsville Baptist as one of their official shelters for members and attenders to evacuate in case another hurricane threatens their community this fall.
BALL – This or any hurricane season many roads could lead to Kingsville Baptist Church for South Louisiana churches.
Designated as an official American Red Cross shelter, a handful of
South Louisiana churches have specified Kingsville Baptist as one of
their official shelters for members and attenders to evacuate in case
another hurricane threatens their community this fall.
Kingsville could house up to 250 evacuees, said Walt Chance, Kingsville’s coordinator for disaster relief.
In the event of a tropical storm or category one hurricane, Celebration
Church in Metairie will offer evacuees use of its facility. Pastor
Dennis Watson said most of his members live in FEMA trailers, which may
not survive in the event of another such storm.
Once on the Metairie campus, the evacuees will register onsite so the church knows who is seeking shelter there.
But if a storm more powerful than a category one hurricane threatens to
make landfall in the area, Celebration Church will be closed and the
evacuees will be encouraged to evacuate to Kingsville Baptist, First
Baptist Church of Lafayette and First Baptist Church of Robert. A staff
person or leader from Celebration Church will be stationed at the three
churches to register the congregation.
“We are so grateful for the pastors and congregations who would receive
our people during that time in the event of another storm,” Watson said.
The Celebration Church staff has trained its members to utilize text
messaging as a major form of communication with staff and each other.
Each staff member’s cell phone number will be posted on the church’s
website.
“Text messaging could be the only way to connect if cell phones go out,” Watson explained.
Like Celebration Church, Calvary Baptist Church in the Algiers section
of New Orleans has entered into a partnership with Kingsville Baptist
in the case of another evacuation this hurricane season.
The first step in Calvary Baptist’s plan is evacuees contacting the
church office before the hurricane to inform the staff they are indeed
relocating to Kingsville Baptist. Pastor Keith Manuel said this would
allow his church to collect names of members, unlike Katrina, when his
staff had a difficult time locating most of the congregation.
If members are unable to contact Calvary Baptist, Manuel encourages his
members to call Kingsville Baptist directly to inform the church they
will be evacuating there. Manuel explained this ensures that the
Central Louisiana church has adequate space.
Manuel said if either step doesn’t work, he will ask his members and
attenders to evacuate to Kingsville Baptist anyway. If they choose not
to evacuate to Kingsville Baptist, Manuel said his congregation would
be encouraged to call the Central Louisiana church anyway to provide
necessary contact information for Calvary Baptist’s staff to compile
the whereabouts of the church family.
During the past few weeks, Edgewater Baptist Church in the Gentilly
section of New Orleans has collected phone numbers and mailing
addresses of three churches or homes where each member is most
likely to evacuate in the event of another hurricane. That information
has been compiled into a church-wide database that staff can use after
the storm.
Staff members at Edgewater Baptist also have established family group
leaders who are responsible for alerting the church the location of its
five to seven group members assigned to the leaders.
When the city of New Orleans issues evacuation orders there, each
family group leader would contact each of his members to receive
information from them about their plans. Before evacuating the city
themselves, each leader will then contact church staff with their group
members’ contact information.
“During Katrina, we found that cell phones were useless,” Pastor Kevin
Lee said. “A lot our people were scattered, communication became
difficult and it was hard to find out where everyone was at the time.
For some people in our church, it took several weeks before they were
able to contact anyone and tell them their whereabouts.
“With the precautions we’ve taken with our evacuation preparedness plans, this will be more manageable in terms of
knowing where each person is beforehand.”
In the event of an evacuation, First New Orleans has asked that all
members check the church website for information regarding programming
and possible message board blogs. Additionally, members would be asked
to alert staff members of their whereabouts through email and/or the
message blogs.
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary spokesperson Gary Myers said
the school has always taken a cautious approach and tried to evacuate
students before any major storm such as Katrina.
If another hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, the seminary will move operations temporarily to Atlanta such as last year.
Three days before Katrina flooded the city last year, the school began
operating in Atlanta until it was able to return to campus late last
year.