Hurricane Florence Recovery – Reconciliation, Wilmington

In late October 2018, five weeks after Hurricane Florence, Deacon GeoRene Jones, synod liaison for Lutheran Disaster Response (LDR), hosted LDR’s U.S. Program Director, Pastor Mike Stadie, as they met with some of our Coastal congregations to listen and see the damage after the storm.

The good news was that they had just removed three dangerously-large cypress trees. The bad news was that the winds of Hurricane Florence followed by days of driving rain forced water around and over sills of stained glass windows in the sanctuary, and down through the walls beneath a section of storm-compromised roof. They had inches-deep flooding in the main building and the educational building where their preschool normally meets. No families experienced catastrophic damage.