Many meals were served, many showers were taken and many loads of laundry were done at the "home" of North Hill Baptist Church, 524-21st Ave. NW, when the Souris River flooded Minot in the summer of 2011.
Southern Baptist Church Disaster relief teams came to help the people of Minot. They set up camp on the church parking lot and were there for more than 100 days. The presence of the 1,300 volunteers was evident at the time and even afterward.
The disaster relief team served 136,547 meals in cooperation with the Salvation Army and the American Red Cross. They provided for 4,184 showers and 4,373 laundry loads. Volunteers also completed mud-out and mold remediation work on 197 homes, which accounts for 25 percent of the work reported by the Response Coordination Center in Minot.
Article Photos
Boards covered holes and ruts on the parking lot of North Hill Baptist Church, 524-21st Ave. NW, after Southern Baptist Church Disaster relief teams left Minot.
Submitted Photo
Broken pavement
It was all good, but the heavy equipment proved to be too much for the parking lot to handle and when the team left, ruts and broken pavement were left behind.
"We contacted FEMA, the City of Minot, the State of North Dakota and any others we could think of for help with repaving the parking lot. After an exhaustive search for help we took the small amount of money provided by the Southern Baptist Church and the Salvation Army and did what we could to patch the lot," said The Rev. Dan Andrus, pastor of North Hill Baptist Church.
Andrus is also hoping that steel poles, which are filled with cement, and chains at the east side of the parking lot will deter drive-through traffic which endangers lives of people who come to the church for services and activities. Glacier Holdings, which has apartments to the east of the church, is working with the church on that effort.
The company that paved the lot acknowledged the problems the church was having with the cost of the repair and "donated" repair of the handicapped-parking area, Andrus said.
"We are grateful for that. We patched the lot and are hoping that it lasts," Andrus said.