MIAMI — A feeder band from a tropical depression swept across south Florida Oct. 3 dumping as much as 18" of rain on parts of Miami and surrounding Dade and Broward counties and damaging nearly 25,000 homes, according to Bill Rhan, the Florida Conference disaster coordinator. The Florida Conference responded by sending its supply of more than 500 flood buckets.

Rhan said the damage caused by the flooding "is going to be another long-term mess for a lot of people." Hundreds of families are in the process of borrowing or buying furniture and repairing their homes a little more than a year after cleaning up from flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene.

"Many of these same people suffered this same dilemma last year and have that added stress of doing it again," Rhan said.

The Rev. David Beers, pastor of Silver Palm United Methodist Church here and Miami District disaster response coordinator, said people who received the buckets appreciated the help, especially since much of the flooding took place in economically depressed areas.

"When you go to them and say, ‘Here’s something to help you. It’s free, you don’t have to pay for it, and it’s from people who care about you,’ it’s always received positively," he said.

The Miami-Dade County Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) is starting to coordinate long-term relief efforts, according to Beers, and is asking local churches to respond to their communities’ needs.

In the meantime, Beers said there is an immediate need for bilingual caseworkers. "We’ve asked for caseworkers who speak Spanish and English or Creole and English," he said. "Many of the Red Cross volunteers are from other parts of the country and don’t speak those languages."

Rhan is asking conference churches to help replenish the supply of flood buckets and canned food. "Right now we have some canned food in the depot from the Orlando canned food drive," he said. "But we try to keep enough on hand to feed 10,000 to 20,000 people. We’re out of flood buckets at the conference level, which is bad because we’re still in hurricane season."