Loading...On December 30 at St. Thomas, Lancaster, Fr. Jonathan Currier, Convener of the Lancaster Convocation, blessed the buckets of cleaning supplies going to the New Jersey coast.
Volunteers from the churches of the Convocation put the lids on and packed two cars and one truck. The plan was to meet Thursday morning at St. Paul’s, Manheim, at 9:00 AM to leave for the seaside town of Lavallette.
Fr. Pete Greenfield, Rev. Ellie Hart, Karen and Bob Whetstone and Deacon Nancy and Frank Rementer made up the group heading for the Jersey shore. Fr. Pete told us before we left that 12 hours in the car with Rev. Ellie would make him appreciate the quiet of Carol!!! Rev. Ellie informed us that prayers were being offered for her as she rode 12 hours with Fr. Pete!!! We all got a good laugh out of that.
The trip down went well until we reached Point Pleasant where the National Guard would not let us through. They said we had to turn around and go inland and come in from the South. “Captain” Pete was not going to accept this and called the firehouse in Lavallette that was awaiting our arrival. At this point, the fire chief, Pat Reece, said, “Stay where you are and I’ll be there in 10 minutes to escort you in.”
10 minutes later, down the road came a big red fire truck with lights flashing! We knew we were getting in…until the Guard said they would not let us pass. At this, the fire chief told them that we came from Central Pennsylvania with cleaning materials that they needed and we were going in! This was a tense moment, but soon we were on our way! The fire chief in his big red truck, lights flashing, escorted us to the firehouse. The area we traveled through had little left but broken houses, piled sand and debris.
When we reached the firehouse there were firemen waiting to unload the buckets. After unloading the cars and truck, they took us on a tour of the firehouse to see the damage. They had five feet of saltwater in the whole place. They lost everything including 1 fire engine they had kept in town in case of a fire or rescue. The firemen told us they were in the building during the storm and were looking down the street at a “gray thing” coming toward them. They soon realized it was a 6-8 foot wall of water; the ocean was in the street. Well, you can pretty much figure out what happened! They went to higher ground next door.
While we were unloading the buckets, Nancy was taking pictures. She took one of the front of the station and to our surprise, the sun cast a shadow across the flagpole and made a cross on the building. God is really in this place.
When a fire company in Pennsylvania learned the Lavallette Fire Company lost a truck, they gave a truck to them that had been given to them by a Maryland fire company when the PA fire company lost a truck during a flood in their town.
While we were at the firehouse, a young woman, Cassandra Vitale, who is in charge of a staging operation in Ortley, NJ, came by to meet us. Cassandra lived in Florida at the time of the storm, left her home and job to return to New Jersey where she grew up two towns over from where we were. She returned to aid in relief and recovery efforts. She started the program asking for help for her “beach people” on FaceBook. She now is organizing the staging area. We asked her about the St. Elisabeth Episcopal Chapel and she told us it was gone, but that she had something we would like to see. She had found the sign for the church two towns away and is keeping it in the staging area at the Ortley Municipal Building until they rebuild. Some of the pews were found on the mainland, she said. There is nothing on the sight of the chapel; it is now a pile of sand.
Cassandra took us on a tour of the old police station that was flooded and now is being gutted. The building has been donated to her and is being used for the staging area where supplies like the buckets will eventually be stored for townspeople to use. She told us they need all kinds of finishing supplies: drywall screws, spackling tape and paste, tape measures, skill saws, crowbars, hammers, screwdrivers, etc. More materials and workers will be needed.
When we left there we drove up and down some streets to see the damage. It is like something out of this world that is hard to comprehend and imagine.
We arrived home about 9:00 PM after a day of blessing.
