BACKGROUND: FUMC Johnson City has taken on the work of local area disaster response as a Mission Project. In the early months of 2007 we qualified our Activities Building as an American Red Cross Shelter, and trained several dozen of our members and neighbors as shelter management personnel. We have had subsequent training in disaster response topics and continue our mission to plan, prepare and respond. We have assisted in recent disaster events in Eagle Pass (tornado damage), Marble Falls (flooding) and Granite Shoals (flooding) and opened a "silent" shelter at FUMC in Johnson City.

If you have an interest in this, please contact either of two below:

Johnson City Methodist Shelter and local response issues: George Cofran, Cell: 281-300-7177, GeorgeCofran@Cofran.com.

Under George Barnette's leadership at the FUMC conference level, we have formed the Blanco County Disaster Response Group to serve these needs on a broader basis. For more information regarding overall Methodist Conference-wide disaster response issues: George Barnette, george@bnpr.com.

For updated information on Disaster Response (mission, background, resources, training, schedule, etc.), click: www.BlancoCountyDisasterResponseGroup.org

May 27, 2008 Article in Johnson City Newspaper: Blanco County Volunteers Respond to Flash Flood, by George Barnette

"It's still standing," Bernice Boehle sighed, "but I can't live in it now."

Boehle, who lives in Quihi in Medina County, was telling cleanup volunteer Judy Hutcherson of Fredericksburg about the flash flood damage to her house

On Friday, May 14, about four feet of water swept into the house where Boehle and her late husband had expected to spend their retirement years.

On Saturday, May 22, a team of volunteers swept into the house to help move her belongings out.

"These folks need a lot of help right now," said Pastor Charlie Parker of New Fountain United Methodist Church, just down the road from Quihi. "And they're going to need help for a long time."

So Parker put the word out on the grapevines...to churches and groups, through the United Methodist Church, to San Antonio non-profit agencies...that there would be a workday on Saturday to help clean up, repair, and move out.

He hoped someone would show up. More than 50 people did.

They came from Hondo and around Medina County, of course, but also from places like San Antonio, Bulverde, Pearsall, Kerrville, and Fredericksburg.

And there were members of the Blanco County Disaster Response Group, on the road aboard the Johnson City First United Methodist Church's bus before daybreak to be there on time.

"This is what churches are supposed to be doing," said Larry Martin of Blanco, as his work-crew sweated over the demolition of what was left of the porch of Karen Merritt's mobile home. "Talking Christian talk is easy. Living the life is harder, but more rewarding, and it's what we're supposed to be doing."

Merritt and her dogs had ridden in the trailer hundreds of yards as it floated away that night, flattening fences and a utility pole before coming to rest against a neighbor's home. It will have to be hauled off and junked.

Sandi Burleson of Cypress Mill sweated in the heat and humidity as she picked up the scattered debris of Merritt's life from the neighbor's yard.

"This could be any of us," Burleson said. "Some of these places have never flooded before. In the Blanco County, we know a flash flood could hit anywhere, anytime. If it were my house, I'd hope someone would be there helping me, too."

Burleson is a veteran of the Disaster Response Group. She brought two new recruits with her: husband Pat and grandson Patrick Fruin, from Austin, passing the tradition of the Good Samaritan to another generation.

Eight-year-old Fruin expected to spend the day out of the way, playing with his Gameboy. Instead, he put on one of the bright orange vests and worked up a sweat with the rest of the volunteers.

Judy Hutcherson is a veteran of more than the Blanco Group's disaster work. The retired nurse makes frequent mission trips with Methodist teams; she's just back from doing polio immunizations in India, and about to leave again for Haiti.

"Mrs. Boehle is right to move out of the house, repairable or not," she explained. "A week after having four feet of water in it, you don't want to think about what's growing inside the walls. Sleeping outside would be safer."

That's exactly what neighbors Abel and Lenora Mencada did. Their house was unsafe to sleep in, so he spent a few nights on the back seat of his car, protecting the place against looters, before joining his wife in a tent in the yard.

Ellen Ferguson's double-wide escaped the flooding, but the wind ripped off the roof, letting the rain pour in. Stalactites of damp insulation hung from great gaps in the ceiling as volunteers packed up her belongings to go to storage until the home can be replaced.

Crew leaders from New Fountain UMC had the day organized before the volunteers hit the coffee and doughnuts, mapping out priority homes with manpower and tools needed for each. First United Methodist Church in nearby Hondo scored big points by delivering lunch to the hungry workers.

The most rewarding comment was from one of the flood survivors.

"They never even asked what church we went to," she marveled.

It didn't matter, of course. Whether a couple of houses away or a couple of counties, she was a neighbor who needed help.

Judy Hutcherson, right, of Fredericksburg, helped Bernice Boehle clean out her kitchen after the flash flooding in Quihi. Many appliances and furnishings were ruined by the four feet of water inside, and with mold already growing in the walls, Boehle expected the house would need to be destroyed. Hutcherson was one of the volunteers from United Methodist Churches and the Blanco County Disaster Response Group that went to the Medina County community to help.

Tommy Thurlkill, rigth, loosened the next piece as Zach Beattie, right, helped carry off part of what used to be the porch of a mobile home. The trailer had floated over fields and fences in the Quihi flash flooding, flattening a power pole before jamming against a neighbor's house. Members of the Blanco County Disaster Response Group were asked to join volunteers there helping to clean up and repair damage and start the recovery process.

Larry Martin of Blanco, right, waited his turn in the trash heap as Tommy Thurlkill and Pat Burleson, in the orange vests, pulled apart the ruined structure. They spent last Saturday helping clear damage from the flash flooding in Medina County, where mobile homes like this one were lifted off their piers and floated as much as a half-mile away. Many elderly and limited-income residents had never flooded before, and so had no flood insurance.

Billie Cooper of Johnson City cleared debris from the marker commemorating the founding of the Quihi community in 1845. The granite slab was securely anchored in the ground before the creek in the background rose in a flash flood that inundated homes and businesses. Cooper and other Blanco County Disaster Response Group volunteers were asked to go to Medina County to help residents clean up and make repairs...or to move out of uninhabitable homes.

It was Blanco County to the rescue early Saturday morning as volunteers arrived at their first assignment in Quihi, which had been hit by flash flooding the weekend before. Left to right are Larry Martin of Blanco, and Zach Beattie and Tommy Thurlkill of Johnson City, about to begin removing flood-damaged belongings from a house. They and other volunteers used the First United Methodist Church bus to haul them and their tools to the Medina County community.

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June 26, 2008 Article in Johnson City Newspaper: Disaster training draws Central Texas responders, by George Barnette

Students came from as far away as Eagle Pass for the disaster training given Saturday at the Johnson City First United Methodist Church. The subject was "Spiritual and Emotional Care" -- how to help survivors get through the emotional trauma of a disaster -- but the skills will be applicable not only in large incidents but in lesser,
everyday crises such as house fires, job loss or a death in the family.

"It sounds like a religious course, and in some ways it is," said Pastor Sid Spiller of the First UMC, "but it other ways it isn't. Psychological and emotional trauma are as real as physical injuries, and just as common after disasters. We need to be as ready to help with those as the EMS is ready to help a person with a broken arm."

A big way to help is to show survivors that there's a pattern of emotional response after an incident: a quick dip of shock, a short-lived resurgence of confidence, and then a long descent toward depression as it becomes evident recovery isn't going to come quickly. "Just being able to see on the chart where they are and to realize that everyone else is moving along the same emotional path is tremendously helpful to survivors," explained instructor Mary Gaudreau, of Guthrie, Okla. "How fast someone moves along that path is different from person to person. How deep that second dip is and how quickly they climb back up varies, too, but we know we can help people
through it better and faster."

"We also know there are typical ways children and teenagers react to incidents, so we teach signs and signals to watch for, and things parents can do to help a child recover from the shock of an incident."

Gaudreau came to Johnson City for the United Methodist Committee on Relief, UMCOR, the denomination's international disaster relief agency. In addition to sending experts, supplies and cash to disaster areas from Missouri to Myanmar, UMCOR provides training to churches and local organizations like the Blanco County Disaster Response Group.

The Blanco County group and local Methodist church were original hosts for the training, but it quickly grew to something much larger.

The class became basic training for a spiritual and emotional care team for the South West Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church, covering hundreds of churches from the Rio Grande Valley to Central Texas, and from near Houston to Big Bend.

"This group will be the core of a Spiritual and Emotional Care Team", according to Gene Hileman of San Antonio, disaster response coordinator for the conference. "We'll recruit and train more members, and call on them to help survivors of disasters anywhere in this part of Texas...and maybe beyond."

Hileman said he has scheduled another "basic training" class for San Antonio in October.

Members of the Blanco County Disaster Response Group who took the training will continue to sharpen and expand their skills so they also can help their neighbors here at home when needed.

The Blanco County group's next training will be an all-day class in first aid, CPR, CPR for infants and children, and the use of AEDs, taught by the American Red Cross and held on Saturday, July 19th.

For information on the local disaster group, first aid-CPR class, or spiritual and emotional care training, call JoAnn Routh at 830-868-7414.

Lending a new meaning to "sack lunch", participants in Saturday's disaster training had to prepare their own lunches of typical "disaster-shelter meals" -- in this case, freeze-dried beef stroganoff with chocolate-strawberry crunch for dessert. Here, UMCOR instructor Mary Gaudreau, of Guthrie, Okla, center, pours cold water into Margery Hall-Marshall's dessert pouch, while Gene Hileman seals a pouch to let his main course simmer. The Blanco County Disaster Response Group, which sponsored the training session, hopes to raise enough money to stock the shelf-stable meals to feed local shelter "guests" after a tornado or flash flood. The student judgment on the meals, by the way, ranged from "Not bad" to "Can I have seconds?".