Many religious denominations organize volunteer groups to travel to sites of natural disasters , such as these Lutheran volunteers who helped after a violent tornado in 2013 . Sacred places close to the disaster site often act as staging grounds and overnight accommodations for these groups . George Armstrong / FEMA
Houses of Worship Central to Disaster Recovery by Sarah Lyn Jones
Associate Director of Community Engagement , Partners for Sacred Places
In August of 2017 , the city of Houston braced itself for a hurricane named Harvey making its way toward landfall . Houstonians are no strangers to major storm systems , but none expected Harvey to cause the damage it did . The storm stalled over the city for three days and dumped over 50 inches of rain on the metro area — enough water to fill the Astrodome three times over and to depress the Earth ’ s crust across the region by half an inch . Houstonians were stranded in their homes and neighborhoods , and the National Guard and the Red Cross were unable to bring outside resources into many areas for over a week . After the water receded , the city faced the monumental task of rebuilding homes ( over 208,000 were destroyed ) and public infrastructure . As they so often do , faith communities rose to the challenge of the crisis and provided over $ 210 million in funds and over 525,000 hours of volunteer labor to the relief and recovery efforts . Countless congregations opened
their doors to become shelters and host sites for volunteer teams , provided clean drinking water , food , and clothing , and became informal hubs for Houstonians to access assistance and information . They responded in ways that no one else could . Partners for Sacred Places has long championed the fact that houses of worship have public value — that the activities congregations support and host within their buildings are essential to the health and well being of their communities . Never is this more apparent than during a natural disaster , when churches , syna-
The congregants at Reedy Chapel , in Galveston , Texas , helped the island recover after several hurricanes and at least one fire . The Chapel suffered severe damage from Hurricane Ike in 2008 and its sanctuary was closed for 315 days for repairs and restoration . Sharon Gillins , Reedy Chapel
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