Florida United Methodist churches assess damage
from Irene
  

IRENE: MORE TROUBLE THAN FLOYD

               Photo by Michael Wach 

Residents of Keene's Trailer Park in Canal Point were among the hardest hit by Hurricane Irene last month. While many were without power and clean water for more than a week after the storm, the major concern is the loss of employment. Flooding in the cane fields and damage to local sugar mills have left thousands of people out of work.     

LAKELAND — Although last month’s Hurricane Irene was a Category 1 hurricane as it crossed over Florida, its rain and winds combined to cause extensive damage to buildings and crops in southern parts of the state.

At least 35 United Methodist churches and parsonages reported damages, according to Robert Wray, a property and liability adjuster with Orlando’s Gallagher Bassett Services, a service agency that processes self-insurance claims for the Florida Conference.

Irene had maximum sustained winds of less than 75 miles per hour while over Florida, according to the National Hurricane Center, but one monitoring station reported wind gusts of up to 120 mile per hour during the worst part of the storm. Irene also dropped as much as 10 to 20 inches of rain in some parts of the state.

It was that combination of wind and rain that caused most of the damage, Wray says.

“Most of it is roofs, parsonage screen enclosures and water damage,” he said. “…it [water damage] came from the wind-driven rain getting in places where it doesn’t normally get.”

While most of the claims have been appraised at less than $5,000, there are at least six churches with damage exceeding $25,000, Wray said. Woodlands United Methodist Church in Tamarac has an estimated $150,000 in damage to its roof, interior walls, carpet and furnishings.

“There still may be others [claims] out there that are huge,” Wray said. Appraisers have not visited all the affected churches due to a shortage of appraisers.

Most of the United Methodist churches reporting damage are on the east coast of Florida between Titusville and Homestead, according to Wray. The only inland church that has filed a claim so far is First United Methodist Church, Pahokee.

Wray said he expects the number of damaged churches to increase slightly over the next month as the final claims are filed. By contrast, only six churches filed claims after Hurricane Floyd, which threatened Florida’s east coast in September with sustained winds of up to 155 miles per hour.

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