Helping Hands Needed
There is an immediate need for cleanup crews and some volunteers to remove wet drywall in the Boistfort Valley southwest of Chehalis. Before you go, you must contact the UMVIM coordinators, Rev. Ruth Mathis, and/or Ronda Cordill.
Local Contact: Ruth Peterson, days, 360-245-3207, evenings 360-245-3960, grpete@centurytel.net
Place: Boistfort Grange (no address - between fire station and school in Boistfort)
Time: Anytime between December 17-23, 2007.
Accomodations: Make arrangements with area United Methodist Churches.
Availability: There were approximately 15 job sheets available the night of Dec. 16th.
Duration: One day or longer depending upon accomodations.
Tools: Clean up tools, such as shovels, flood buckets, etc. and tools for removing drywall.
Photography: Pictures may be taken after gaining permission.
Requirements: Do not deploy without the approval of Rev. Ruth Mathis, 360-798-3251, or Ronda Cordill, 509-235-5466, UMVIM Coordinators.
PNW Disaster Response Coordinators
*The article above was taken from the Disaster Response Blog maintained by George Abrams, you can veiw the blog directly at the following link:
http://www.gbgm-umc.org/disasterteam/blog/
From George Abrams, Conference Disaster Relief Coordinator:
12/17/2007
Work teams are needed this week in the hard-hit flood area west of Chehalis and Centralia, especially in the next 7 days (to get cleaned up by Christmas). Youth and young adult folks who can perform hard physical labor are urgently needed. 57 homes in the Pe Ell/Curtis/Boistfort area were flooded during the recent storm.Older people (and people who will fatigue easily when shoveling mud) may be needed to fold and sort donated materials, check in volunteers, keep a running inventory of work gloves, etc..
Please call the Vancouver District Office of the United Methodist Church (360-695-8598) to schedule a work day. Emergency Operations Center (EOC) staffer Ruth Peterson says, "Knowing a few days ahead would be good! " Ruth Peterson asks that we try to avoid swamping the EOC with individual offers to work from many different sources. It is best if all interested UMs call the Vancouver District Office first. UMVIM Coordinators Ruth Mathis and Rhonda Cordill will work with Sherry Wilson, Vancouver District Secretary, to alert the EOC at Baw Faw of a teams plans for arrival.
EOC staffer Ruth Peterson can also be reached directly at: boistfortvalley@yahoo.com
Volunteers will report (according to pre-arranged schedule) to the Baw Faw Grange Hall (on the Boistfort Road, 15 miles from Chehalis: 9 miles west on Hwy 6, and then south on the Boistfort road about 5- 6 miles).
News From the Flood Zone
Photos and Stories from Kathleen Hylkema
12/11/2007
*To see larger versions of Kathleen's photos, please click here.
Hi UMCers,
Here are some pictures from the Hylkema's in Chehalis. The first one is looking from our home over- looking Green Hill School (Prison for youth). It was surrounded on three sides. The line that looks like a sunken bridge is I-5 as the water was rising. Davis left Olympia UMC at 11:00 am and our daughter was one of the last to leave her class at the Chehalis High School at noon on Monday. The Principle opened the High School to all students stranded who could not get home and to all people needing shelter, for the High School in Chehalis 
remained high and dry and was used as a landing strip for many of the 400 persons airlifted out of surrounding towns. The Local Red Cross set up by Tues. morning. Helicopters flew over for many nights picking up people stranded by the levy breaking suddenly and dropping them off at the High School. The (stranded persons) were then moved to the Latter Day Saints Church so the schools could try to get back to session starting Friday.
The second picture is I-5 on Dec. 5 as we walked around town. We still could not get to Centralia or the South part of Chehalis. We were very glad to see the Safeway truck as Mary Alice said. It was the only grocery store open for the people displaced, and the people blessed to have dry homes, and electricity in our area, and the shelves were empty. Our governor went out of her way to see the devastation herself, both flying over and personally meeting with some of the displaced people and the organizations in place and already serving the needs. Personally I was encouraged to see semi’s being filled 
and shipped to the area, and funds coming to many service organizations. God already has in place in the hearts of His people to meet the needs. As His Holy Spirit activates each individual person, people are calling from many places to see what they can do. The body of Christ from many Christian Churches have pledged to send help for reconstruction. Most of these are filtering through the United Way of Lewis County who are doing a tremendous job day after day to coordinate volunteers and materials coming in. I continue to be amazed at how God is matching needs with help as each need comes forth. Please pray for those who may have been overlooked and those who have not asked for help because of shock or pride. There are also people with special medical needs that need to be addressed immediately. As the waters subside people are wandering out who have not had newspapers, TV, or radio for a week. Please also pray for protection for people in Washington State to be kept safe from persons who would take advantage.
The Third picture is looking across I-5 standing under the overpass bridge at Chamber Way. Chamber is approximately the border between 
Centralia and Chehalis. This was a far as we could walk the first day. Monday a power boat was going in to Wal-Mart and back to the shore (overpass bridge) guarded by the military to load pick-up trucks to send supplies out to Adna and Pe Ell.
The Forth picture is just south of the third picture with Davis and our daughter Tiffany at an access road which turned south and used to go next 
to the freeway. You can see things beginning to float downstream on the freeway. All the businesses in this area were flooded on Monday, and by Tuesday you could see some of them beginning to power wash while others waited for the water level to drop so they could have access to their cars and businesses. If you think the pictures are unbelievable you would not believe what it looks like in person. Everybody is doing everything we can. We need the Lord to lead us in this monumental effort. Stories are already coming in on what the Lord has done. Many lives spared by the grace of God. A testimony at church on Sunday was from a Dairy farmer whose son and neighbors had to be airlifted out while trying to get the cows to high ground. They were able with neighbors to save 6 of their 220 head of cows. Yes, the rest drown. It turned out God helped them get out her son and grandson's favorite cows to high ground along with 2 dozen people. She praised God for this blessing, a sign to her how much God knows and cares even in natural disasters. Please pray for boldness to share Jesus as we minister side by side with our neighbors. As Mary Alice said there are believed to be only 3 deaths due to the flood. One is a man in the local church we attend. He is about 80 yrs old and was starting a pump in the basement when the flood waters came rushing through. His wife told the Pastor she knows he is with the Lord. His body is yet to be found. The Hope and the Grace of our Lord Jesus abounds here. The Lord is reminding me of a childhood song- Yes, Jesus Loves me, Yes, Jesus Loves me, Yes, Jesus loves me the bible tells me so. We have the opportunity only in our generation to share the love of Christ He has given us. I hope long after we are gone our testimony of what Jesus has done in our life and the whole testimony of the scriptures will continue telling generations of the Love and Hope and Saving Grace Jesus gave His life for. That each of us will come to know Him personally as Savior and be willing to ask Him to become Lord of their lives. Praise God for the work He is doing in your heart and mine.
In Jesus my Lord,
Kathleen Hylkema
Chehalis flooding report from Mary Alice Eberle
12/7/2007
So many of you have emailed or left messages, so I thought I would take a moment tonight to try and get you all caught up on our eventful lives.
Yes, we are in a mess, mess, mess..... well, not exactly, Tom and I....but certainly the area.
I'm afraid the Centralia pastor and his family were less fortunate than Tom and I as they were evacuated in the middle of the night. The parsonage was, indeed, flooded so they have a horrible mess to contend with.
It's quite a sight to see a freeway 10 feet underwater.... and the water stretching as far as you can see in both directions as you stand on a freeway overpass.
Many, many people were impacted.... including a good many people whose homes laid outside the flood area, so they have no flood insurance....no history of ever needing to do so before.
With all the loss of property and animals, I continue to stand amazed that the death count is only three... as far as we know. Of course, there may be more found, but at least no one else has been reported as missing that I know of.
As far as our church people are concerned, 
we had only three families who were heavily impacted. However, in addition to them there were crazy things like families being separated because the waters came so rapidly. For instance, one man kissed his wife good-by in the morning and then came into town to go to the doctor. By the time he was done with that appointment there was no way of getting back home. It has been a joy to see how the members of this church were immediately phoning one another to assure that all was well.
A retired couple in our church recently put their beautiful home up for sale and moved into to senior development where upkeep issues would be minimal. The wife was away visiting a daughter in California, and the husband had returned to the house to either get some items... or do something to enhance the resale... I'm not real clear on that... but anyway, the water came so fast that he was unable to get himself to higher ground.... and definitely couldn't crawl up on a roof. So, he said that the water was up to his neck by the time he was rescued. He was pretty scared. Then, the helicopter took him to a shelter in Centralia and immediately flew off in search of others. However, he is a brittle diabetic.... had no medicine, of course.... and there was no way to get him to the hospital because the water was between the shelter and the hospital. Helicopters had to be recalled STAT to air lift him across the water to the hospital. We're talking high drama here.
We live in an apartment on a hill... on the second floor.... so had few worries. The closest the water got to us was four blocks. It was hard having downtown businesses closed for awhile when workers had no way of getting to work. We couldn't get to Centralia.... 3 miles away....until last evening.
Not being able to read a paper was also hard. We got our first paper today. Tonight I spent a good deal of time cutting flood articles out to send back to Iowa.
If it wasn't for the sadness of the loss of property and animals (dead cows even found in trees), the experience has been somewhat interesting. However, 'old timers' say that the nasty part is yet to come as people begin to return to their homes and put all their household goods, ripped up carpet and wall board out by the curb. None of it can be disposed of until insurance adjusters can get around seeing and filing reports on each individual house/business... Since the damages have been so immense, that may take quite a bit of time. In the meantime, we have been warned that a horrible stench is likely to follow. I am not looking forward to that as my smelling sense seems to be very acute in the first place.
Tom and I think we are going into withdrawal, however, as we have not been able to access Starbucks... but then, there is no one there. It looked to us like it might have been built on a slightly higher level than some of the other surrounding establishments, so we are praying that they didn't get water in there building. We haven't heard anything about that. We know that all the buildings around them did get water, so we may be asking for too much.
Not having Walmart for awhile will be very stressful for many, many people who depend on them for product and produce. We haven't heard when they might be able to gut, restock, and open. The same is true with Home Depot. In fact, there aren't any lumber stores near by that weren't heavily impacted. All were flooded. Dry lumber is needed for rebuilding, of course.
And, not being able to have trucks come in to supply stores puts us at a real disadvantage. Tom said Safeway finally got water, some meat, and produce in today... thanks to some trucker who had to come to us from Portland, through Yakima and then over White Pass.
I suspect that there will be those individuals and businesses in Seattle who have felt the crunch because of trucks having to travel so far around to get there rather than making that quick, straight shot from Portland.
Of course, we are aware that rumors are always apt to abound in times like
this.... but, if what we heard today IS true... then we could be in for real problems. One of the things I heard is that the Red Cross was going to have to pull out because of lack of funds. Their funding has been greatly stretched by the aftermath of Katrina.... and then the California fires. We still have people needing shelter and I'm fairly sure that the hope is for the churches to step up and fill that need.
The second item I heard today was that federal funding help may be quite limited because of the previously mentioned disasters..... AND all the monies being directed to the war in the Middle East.
Yesterday I looked out the window to see a big, beautifully detailed bus go by advertising fast cash and help with mortgage payments. I called Tom to let him know that 'the vultures had landed.'
Many of the holiday activities have been impacted by the flood. Schools have been closed, of course, and there was to be a big production of Snow White this weekend. I have my doubts that it occurs. Also the Nutcracker production was to occur. We haven't heard whether that will happen. We do know that The Messiah has been cancelled for this coming weekend.... along with every other event or regularly scheduled meeting in town.
Well, I'm getting weary, so must go 'turn in.' Actually, it has felt rather good to get this all written out.... well, not ALL of it, but a substantial amount.
MAE
*Mary Alice Eberle is the wife of Tom Eberle, pastor at Chehalis UMC
Report from Mike Graef, Superintendent of the Vancouver District
Updated 12/7/2007
As of this Thursday afternoon, 12/6, the "Response Phase" of the disaster response is completed. Reports are still coming in, but it seems that power is back on in most of the affected areas. People have been incredibly faithful and steadfast throughout this ordeal, pulling together and helping one another in amazing ways. The Montesano ministerial association trucked food to the shelter in Ocean Shores, which was running dangerously low on food on Tuesday. Beautiful help, and so appreciated! Stories such as this one abound. Inspiring faith people are offering hope and practical assistance.
"The Response Phase" (the initial 4 days after a disaster) is over. All of the people who were to be airlifted to safety in the region have been airlifted. Helicopters flying for the purpose of airlifting persons to safety are not flying above communities like Rochester now. Now, says Conference Disaster Response Coordinator George Abrams, comes 40 days of the "Relief Phase" which will be followed by the 400 days of the "Recovery Phase".
A report on damage: There were deaths and injuries caused by this weather system. No deaths reported yet from UM churches, but we know the pain is very great and the cost to human life in the region is being felt acutely by many families. Flood damage has been reported at Centralia UMC (parsonage), Mercer Island UMC, Seattle: Crown Hill UMC, and Leavenworth UMC. Wind damage to roofs or windows or both has been reported at: Grays River, Raymond, Willapa, Hoquiam, Aberdeen First, Kelso, and McCleary. Reports are still coming in, so that list may well grow as time goes on. Many thousands of homes were flooded in the Centralia/Chehalis area, and points west. A dike failed in Centralia which was initially the cause of the flooding. But some information indicates that the flood crested 6 inches above the top of the dike.
A $10,000 UMCOR grant for humanitarian relief has already been sent to the Conference Treasurer, and will be available to supplement locally raised funds. Local churches are encouraged to receive offerings and submit funds to the Conference Treasurer which can be used for humanitarian relief. Centralia UMC is receiving enormous numbers of calls for help. Local church work teams will be needed to help with the cleanup, especially in the "Relief Phase". UMVIM Teams will be needed in the 400 days of the "Recovery Phase" to follow.
In the Vancouver District a disaster response field office will be set up in the Vancouver District Office. Calls or contacts for volunteering work team support can be made to the Vancouver District: vandistumc@saw.net, or 360-695-8598.
May God give all affected strength and hope. You're all in our prayers,
Mike Graef
First Hand Report of the Flooding
12/5/2007
Dear Friends,
It was so lovely to hear from so many of you as you checked in on me. Obviously, Dave and I are fine. We have been absolutely amazed by what we have seen.
I was on I-5 at exit 79 when the river began to cross the freeway. Fortunately I was able to exit by driving on the shoulder about a half mile. 
As I went over the freeway on Highway 6, I could see the river completely break loose and cover the road beneath me. It was a bit hairy crossing on the old cement bridge when the normally placid river spread a half mile beyond it in every direction, but I got home, found everything at my place fine, and settled in for the evening.
This morning, Dave and I went out on the road in front of our house as far as we could go in both directions. The broad green valley was completely filled with water all the way across. Our road was cut off by the river about .2 miles to the South, and about 2.0 miles to the North. We saw many trapped animals, a few washed away cars, and a few houses or parts of them floating by. All of the neighbors were out, and all claimed it had never been this bad before as long as they had lived here.
This afternoon, David and I headed toward Adna on Highway 6 to see the damage. The river had significantly receded, and parts of the highway were high and dry. Many areas of the side roads are washed out. Big chunks of road are lying haphazardly across fences, and fields. I saw a deer who had perished two feet from the hillside. When we got to Adna (small town 2.5 miles to the west of us), we saw unbelievable damage. Houses had been flooded so quickly that their back walls were blown out, their roofs were missing, and their front windows were shattered. People were standing around shaking their head
s or shoveling. Dead cows and sheep, crushed cars, and strange things like barbecues were lying in fields and on the road. At this point the whole experience went from being an interesting story to being about human misery. This is where the helicopters flew all night pulling people off of roofs and cars and trees. The area has no running water ironically as the groundwater is all contaminated. The house where the woman who repaired my antique quilt lives (she is the wife of a small town minister who is currently fighting cancer) was ruined. The church next door where her husband preaches, and the grange as well, obviously victims to the waters. I wondered what happened to all of the hundreds of quilts she makes, repairs, and works with. Adna Junior Senior High School was an island in the midst of the debris. Water had entered and lapped at the classroom doors but not into the classes. Just last month Adna failed a levy to build a new field and more classroom space. Now they will need to rebuild their gymnasium, all fields, and who knows what else.
Dave and I came home where a sheriff stopped us and told us we might be able to cross the valley by late tonight. I watched the news and heard them say repeatedly to check their web sites for information about road closures, and aid stations. I don't know about the flooded people, but we just got back on the internet now, and phone service has been spotty and overwhelmed. I had to laugh at channel 4 news when they claimed the governor had visited a high school in Chehalis. There is only one high school in all of the towns down here. It seems the people who need the info can't get it, and the people who don't are continuously bombarded with it.
Anyway, pray for the people out in Adna and Pe Ell. I will be off work for at least another day gosh darn it!
Beth
*Beth Wilson is a former member of Puyallup United Methodist Church. This story was submitted with permission by Maxine of Puyallup UMC.