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BY PRISCILLA GREEAR
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--All Saints Church in Dunwoody offered a Mass April 9 to provide all
people affected by last year’s damaging tornado another opportunity to
remember parishioner John Janisch, who was killed in the storm, as well as the
chance to share their stories and to experience healing.
Peggy White, All Saints parish nurse with St. Joseph’s Hospital’s
Congregational Health Ministries, was a coordinator of tornado relief outreach
throughout the past year. This outreach was open to the entire community.
“Everybody that was affected by this tornado had a story to tell. That was
one of the goals--for people to have a place to share their stories and their
experiences and that just in itself is healing. At the one-year anniversary,
people were crying at that Mass because they still had not healed totally.
It’s going to take a long time,” she said.
Over 5,000 people had homes in suburban Atlanta neighborhoods that were
damaged by the spring tornado, including 600 All Saints families.
Also that anniversary weekend, Msgr. R. Donald Kiernan, pastor of All
Saints, joined five Protestant and Jewish clergy members in leading another
community anniversary celebration held at Kingswood United Methodist Church.
The service was held after a fund-raiser for Replant the Dunwoody Forest, which
is raising money to replant the over 60,000 trees that were destroyed by the
storm. It was planned by the Interfaith Action committee, which includes All
Saints and several other churches and synagogues from north DeKalb and western
Gwinnett counties. This committee formed last spring and worked throughout the
past year to provide relief services to all those affected by the tornado.
Msgr. Kiernan said the tornado has helped Dunwoody churches join together.
“We all contributed,” to the anniversary celebration, he said.
“I think Dunwoody is rebuilding itself and they’ve had a lot of
things, like the tree replanting, that have been a big help.”
All Saints has offered both emotional and physical support to the community
in the past year. Initially following the storm, Catholic Social Services, Inc.
offered support groups and “storm debriefings” led by counselors who
are specialists in trauma stress. This service provided victims with helpful
information and a way to address fear and loss.
Jim Kantner, CSS counseling program director, believes that the group
sessions attended by several hundred were very helpful, as healing takes place
in the collective sense. He also said that a minority of people have received
parish referrals for individual counseling with CSS.
He said it is perfectly normal for people to have symptoms of post traumatic
stress a year later, such as flashbacks, bad dreams, feelings of anxiousness
and depression, through reminders of the event including thunderstorms,
insurance payments and news articles. Yet he said that victims who experience
ongoing, excessive symptoms that prevent them from living normally have signs
of post traumatic stress disorder and should see a health professional.
“The biggest issue is to help people to normalize their reactions and
to show people how terribly normal they are and to deal with the grief,”
he said. “The real healing is in the telling of their story and the
sharing of their story in a safe place. And then people begin to realize
they’re not nuts.”
“It’s important for people to realize that life is never back to
normal. You really find a new normal,” Kantner said.
Msgr. Kiernan said he offered spiritual counseling to many people trying to
make sense of the disaster, helping them to move on with life.
Parish tornado relief potluck dinners provided parishioners other
opportunities for fellowship and healing. After having led workshops at All
Saints and other churches, All Saints parishioner Karen Travers completed a
tornado memory book with news articles. It will be seen at the Dunwoody Town
Hall, now under construction.
To heal external wounds, the church held three clean-up days involving 1,000
volunteers. The parish St. Vincent de Paul Society provided tools, gloves,
boxes, water, clothing, brown bag lunches and other support for clean-ups as
needed by the parish and larger community.
“All Saints has been wonderful with having the volunteers. They have
turned out over and over just when there’s been a need,” the parish
nurse said, estimating that 1,500-2,000 people helped throughout the year.
All Saints SVDP member Pat Callahan said the organization has provided
approximately $20,000 in ongoing financial support for things such as rent
payments, apartment relocation costs, insurance deductibles, medications and
home repair costs not covered by insurance companies. He said, while most of
the clean-up is over, some homes still need repairs for which SVDP may offer
support. A common problem, he continued, is that many 20- to 30-year-old homes
that were repaired need enhancements to meet electrical codes and update water
systems which insurance companies will only partially finance. While the
Society also offered ongoing clean-up support, he said it was difficult for
some people to ask for help.
“There were a lot of people who were in need that could have used
assistance, but they were very reluctant to ask for it. They really deserved
assistance,” he said. “We had a couple of cases where we knew they
needed assistance and we went and talked to them, but they refused.”
White said most parishioners had insurance which covered repair costs. One
of the biggest insurance problems, she said, was that people had to wait a long
time before learning exactly what their coverage would include. She said that
as many as seven families were victims of scams by building contractors. The
church gave referrals to an insurance consumer task force to assist with
problems like these.
In addition to the anniversary event, Interfaith Action has tried to meet
various community-wide needs including money, insurance advocacy and referrals.
White, the parish representative, said that the interfaith group plans to
continue serving the community after tornado recovery, focusing next on the Y2K
problem. She and others will give presentations for the Health Ministries
Association’s National Conference at Emory University in June regarding
disaster relief.
“Working for a common cause -- the healing of a community -- that was a
wonderful experience,” White said.
Donna Renbarger, who shared her experience at the April 11 celebration, is
one parishioner who is grateful for the ongoing support she received from All
Saints. She had the roof ripped off and two of her home’s bedrooms
destroyed, forcing her family to move into an apartment until December. During
this time she learned that she needed a liver transplant. She said that
parishioners and others helped to clean up their yard, brought food, visited
them, brought her the Eucharist while she was unable to attend Mass and helped
her family move back home.
The most difficult thing about the displacement was that “it lasted so
long and it’s really hard to keep a positive attitude and keep your
spirits up and keep going with it.”
“What I felt good about was that the (church) support was all along. It
wasn’t just the first couple of weeks,” she said. “Everything
looked so devastated for so long and it’s so depressing and yet you just
have to keep going.”
Renbarger now views the past year as involving a series of miracles in that
she and her family have returned safely to their home and she is recovering
from illness. Yet she struggles with things like watching anniversary coverage
and, as her yard has lost 45 trees, looking out the window where she can now
see the once hidden house on the next street.
“I don’t think it will ever be the same and what we’re trying
to do is accept the change and be positive about the change,” she said.
“I kind of deal with it and part of it is like locking (pain) away. But
basically we’re all dealing with it pretty well.”
White said All Saints plans to form a task force on disaster preparation.
“It’s a tremendous amount of work to work through a disaster,”
she said. “The church plays such an important role in the community during
a disaster. Churches need to be prepared ahead of time so that they can be
prepared for the procedures of disaster recovery so that if the church is
affected or a church in the area is affected they can reach out.”
White also noted that All Saints’ outreach to tornado victims is
ongoing. “We are going to continue to listen and if there are needs in
areas we will help. Just because we’ve had the one-year anniversary, I
don’t want people to think we’re finished.”
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