It’s nothing but rubble on the sand.” That’s the news Paul Smith, pastor of Romar Beach Baptist Church, got from congregation members who watched the evening news as it captured Hurricane Ivan’s smashing into the beachfront church building.
As the wrath of Ivan slammed into the Alabama coast, Baptist churches in the Pleasure Island area — Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan — sustained major wind and water damage. But as of Friday, none reported was as devastating as that of the Romar Beach church.
“I don’t think we have a church left,” Smith said. “I haven’t seen it yet, but I have been told that it’s totally destroyed.”
Ivan’s eye struck the church so directly that national news coverage used the church as a haunting example of the devastation left in the hurricane’s wake.
“A half dozen people called and told me they saw before and after shots of it on the evening news,” Smith said.
Though the footage told a tale of destruction, Smith hasn’t lost faith. “God’s still in control, and we were already planning renovations,” he said. “This could be God’s way of saying, ‘I don’t want you to just renovate, I want you to build a whole new church.’”
Standing through storms
Weathering adversity is nothing new to the mission church – it was birthed in the struggle over prime tourist real estate, and it later survived the winds and rains of Hurricane Georges in 1998 as well.
This time the architect is already preparing plans, and Smith is seeking permission to bring in a portable chapel to house the church temporarily.
“Until that can happen, I’m just trying to come up with a place to hold services this Sunday,” Smith said. “We’re ready to take what we’ve been served and run with it.”
Smith says last he checked, Romans 8:28 is still in the Bible. “The Lord’s got something better in store for us.”
Structural damage — though not the magnitude of the Romar Beach church — was fairly severe for First Baptist Church in Summerdale, First Baptist Church in Atmore and Fulton Road Baptist Church, Mobile, whose steeples toppled off during the height of the storm.
New Life Baptist Church in Bay Minette, Fairmount Baptist Church in Red Level and First Baptist Church in Seminole were also all confirmed to have sustained major water and wind damage.
However, many Baptist churches survived Ivan with only minor roof damage, such as Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile, where Mark Foley, president of the University of Mobile (UM), says the steeple is “still standing tall and proud.”
First Baptist Church, Mobile, member Sheila Parish reported that most of Mobile area had been “very lucky” with the damage that Ivan brought to the Port City. “Compared to Frederic, Ivan was just a bad storm,” she said.
Larry Patterson, director of missions for Baldwin Baptist Association, spent the majority of Friday attempting to check in with the 60 churches that comprise the association. As of Friday, Patterson said he had not been able to reach any of the pastors at the churches in Orange Beach and Gulf Shores to see how much damage they had received.
“Right now we don’t even know if they are still standing,” Patterson said.
Another church with confirmed damage in the ferocious hurricane was First Baptist Church, Silverhill, which had five stained glass windows blown out of the sanctuary, resulting in major water damage to their piano and numerous hymn books.
Silverhill Pastor Jeff Hunter witnessed the eye of Hurricane Ivan as it passed over at around 2 a.m. Hunter, who had taken refuge in the home of a church family with a basement, said that during the eye the atmosphere outside was very calm with no wind or rain.
“There was just some light mist falling and then an hour later, you knew you were in a hurricane,” he said, explaining that “Ivan took the path straight up Highway 59, and we were about three miles from there.”
Hunter said he sent his wife and three daughters to Birmingham to stay with relatives so that he could be readily available to assist church members who might be in need of help after Ivan’s departure. He said that he rode around the community on his bicycle to have accessibility to streets that were not passable by car.
Hunter said that despite the damage to the church, services would be held on Sunday. “All the clichés you hear after a disaster like this are so true,” he said, explaining that once you see something so destructive and devastating, the little problems from the day before seem minor. “You certainly can see the awesome power of God going through an experience like this.”
As Ivan marched north through the state, the severity of damage decreased, though the greater portion of the state at the very least experienced toppled trees and downed power lines.
Alabama Power tagged Ivan with causing the state’s largest power outage in history.
Jerry Wilkins, director of missions for the Tuscaloosa Association, said he’s relieved no damage came to churches in his area. “Tuscaloosa was spared on this one, but our disaster relief team is ready to help whenever needed,” Wilkins said.
In the east, Padgett Cope, director of missions for Cleburne Association, seconded the gratitude that major devastation passed them by. “This is not a scriptural statement, but we ‘dodged a bullet.’”
Alabama’s three Baptist colleges also eluded Ivan’s toughest blows, and UM President Foley said he’s thankful.
“The damage is relatively light here in comparison to what the Gulf Shores area experienced,” Foley said, noting that the only loss was that of one large oak tree that struck nothing when it fell. “We are thankful, but we are definitely in prayer for our neighbors to the east.”
At Samford University in Birmingham and Judson College in Marion, the storm was more of an inconvenience than a hard hit.
“We have a fair number of roof leaks and a few trees down, but no major buildings were damaged,” said Bill Mathews, Samford general counsel and vice president for business affairs.
Children, staff and facilities at all eight Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes campuses across the state also weathered Ivan without incident, and Shocco Springs Conference Center hosted the children and staff evacuated from the Mobile campus.
“It was a blessing from God that Shocco helped us to get the children and adults out of Mobile so that we could care for the structural safety of the children’s homes while experiencing Ivan,” said Mobile Director Jim Chinners. (TAB)
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