CHURCH GROUP HELPS WITH GEORGIA FLOOD RELIEF

Nine Cape Girardeau-area residents have seen the devastation of the flood that struck southwest Georgia in mid-July.

"There was block after block after block of trash piled along the street," said the Rev. David Stewart, pastor of Hobbs Chapel United Methodist Church north of Cape Girardeau and Wesley United Methodist Church near Fruitland.

From Aug. 15 to 21, Stewart and other members of the group were in Albany, Ga., helping with the flood-relief effort. They were part of 20,000-plus people who went to the city of approximately 100,000 to help with the cleanup.

There were approximately 10,000 homes and businesses affected by the flood, Stewart said. The area was flooded when approximately 28 inches of rain from Hurricane Alberto fell north of Albany in 24 hours.

"The area was extremely devastated," Stewart said. "It was totally different from the Cape Girardeau flood last year; people had built in areas that weren't supposed to flood but they did."

When the Cape Girardeau group arrived in Albany they saw streets in both poor and wealthy sections of the city where the only things visible were the floor joists, wall studs and roof trusses of the houses and buildings.

"The kids were amazed at the $300,000 to $400,000 homes that were standing there just gutted," Stewart said of the six teen-agers who went.

The group worked from early morning to late evening every day, Stewart said. Some of their work included taking sheet rock out of houses, pulling up flooring and tearing off roofs so the remaining wood in the houses could dry. In one case the group tore down half a house because it was structurally unsound.

It rained every day the group was in Georgia -- not a lot, but just enough to keep things from drying out. Stewart said local residents were starting to wonder whether they would ever be able to get back into their homes.

The adults on the trip with Stewart were John Price and Wanda Grim, both members of Hobbs Chapel. The teenagers, ages 13-16, were McKenzie Price and Chet Hindman, both from Hobbs Chapel; and Tim and Jadie Eisenhower, Nathan Davis and James Morris, all from Wesley United Methodist Church.

"The kids really worked hard and did some good work," Stewart said. The relief-effort organizers had to keep finding jobs for the group to do.

Stewart said one of the interesting people the group met was a retired man from Pennsylvania. He had been there for three weeks when the Cape Girardeau group arrives.

"He came down as an individual to help," Stewart said. "It's kind of neat to see someone who could give that kind of help."

The group learned about the need for the relief effort through the general organization of the United Methodist Church, Stewart said. He said the church's disaster relief organization usually responds in some way to these types of disasters.