Missouri Baptists respond
to flood

By Brian Koonce
Staff Writer    

CANTON—Despite flooding on the Mississippi River that has threatened to top historic 1993 levels, the Red Cross has not called Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Disaster Relief units into service as of press time.

However, that doesn’t mean that MBC churches and volunteers aren’t reaching out to people in their time of need.

Mt. Salem-Wyaconda Southern Baptist Association’s mass (MSWSBA) care (feeding) unit answered a June 13 call from their local Red Cross office and began feeding displaced residents and sandbagging volunteers in Alexandria, less than a mile from the confluence of the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers.  

“We’re still in the developmental phase and don’t have all our equipment yet, but we were still able to cook meals and help out,” said MSWSBA Director of Missions Randy Ewart. “We served 100 meals the first night and by Saturday we were up to 250. It was good practice for us, and we’re just glad we were able to help.”

That site had to be shut down, however, as the water rose quicker than expected and threatened to flood First Baptist Church, Alexandria. Sunday afternoon, MSWSBA volunteers set up shop in Canton before eventually moving the operation to First LaGrange for the rest of the week. They stood down June 20.

Ewart, who also pastors the Alexandria church, said the church had not been damaged, but was still inaccessible due to flooded streets.
“It will probably be another week before we can get in there and look around,” he said.

Ewart said he was unaware of any other Missouri Baptist churches that had been damaged.

Caused by near-record rains upstream, the Mississippi River and others across the Midwest began overflowing their banks as early as June 9 and have continued to rise. Missouri towns like Louisiana, Hannibal, Alexandria, Canton, Clarksville, LaGrange and West Quincy are facing flooded streets and water-logged farmland in low-lying areas. At least five levees have broken in Lincoln County in less than three days. In Canton, where Mt. Salem Wyaconda’s feeding unit was stationed, the waters crested at 27.4 feet above flood stage, just a few inches short of the 27.8 mark set there in 1993. Gov. Matt Blunt declared the area a disaster zone and has asked President Bush to declare it a federal disaster area.

Although flooding hasn’t provoked the Red Cross to issue disaster relief call-out in-state, three of Missouri’s units have been called into service elsewhere.

A mud-out crew is working in Wisconsin and a chainsaw crew is working in Michigan while a mass care (feeding) unit is working in Wapello, Iowa.

Rick Seaton, director of MBC Disaster Relief, said that as the waters recede and clean-up process begins in earnest, it is likely more MBC units will be called out.