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Clergy offer pastoral care as residents return to flood-damaged Coffeyville

By Melodie Woerman
Director of Communications

	A house in Coffeyville shows a high-water level from recent flooding that mixed water with sewage and crude oil from a refinery spill. Hundreds of people were left homeless by the flood. Photo by the Rev. Jerry Adinolfi

July 12 - The Very Rev. Jerry Adinolfi, rector of St. Paul’s, Coffeyville, was among the first people to survey flood-damaged areas of town on July 11 as residents were allowed in for the first time since flood waters poured over the city’s levees on June 30.

He and other clergy in the southeast Kansas town offered pastoral care as residents began to pick through what is left of their belongings.

According to reports on the web site of the Coffeyville Journal, what they found was evidence of high water mixed with sewage and 72,000 gallons of crude oil that spilled from a local refinery when it was swamped by rising waters from the Verdigris River. In all about 600 homes were affected.

“The devastation is terrible,” Adinolfi said. “Oil slicks are everywhere on the east side. But the long, slow process of healing has begun.”

Episcopalians in Coffeyville and Chanute have damage
Adinolfi said three families from his parish lost their homes in the flooding. He has been in touch with clergy in other parishes in the Southeast Convocation and has learned some parishioners in Independence, Neodesha and Chanute suffered damage. Grace Episcopal Church in Chanute was the only area church building affected. It had about a foot of water in its basement, causing inconvenience but no real damage.

Water rose up to but did not enter the Church of Ascension in Neodesha, Adinolfi said. On Sunday, July 1, the day after the flooding began, the congregation’s priest, the Rev. Gerald Eytcheson, wasn’t able to reach the church from his home in Independence because of roads closed by high water, forcing the cancellation of services that day.

The mother and sister of the Rev. Darrel Proffitt, rector of St. Margaret’s, Lawrence, lost the contents of their homes in the flood, also. He has posted an Internet video of the damage to his mother’s house.

Adinolfi said the Coffeyville community is working together to meet the needs of the hundreds of residents still displaced. He has provided financial support from his discretionary fund to shelters housing people still without a place to stay nearly two weeks after flooding began. The church’s thrift shop is providing clothing for distribution by the Red Cross to those needing it.

Bishop Dean Wolfe today sent money from the diocesan fund established for tornado and flood victims to help residents in that area.

The area suffered catastrophic flooding after two weeks of heavy rain in late June sent area rivers and streams out of their banks and over the tops of dams and levees.