Crisis-trained chaplains with the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team will be arriving in Beaufort County, South Carolina, on Monday to minister to those impacted by Hurricane Matthew, a storm that devastated many coastal communities with an abundance of rain and wind.
Hurricane Matthew stormed through the Atlantic last week after first making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Oct. 4 in Haiti and Cuba, leaving a trail of death and destruction before marching toward the Southeastern United States. The storm was downgraded to a Category 1 as it reached the Carolinas. Beaufort County, which is located on the South Carolina coast between Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, received 11 inches of rain along with 70-plus mph winds.
Eight total chaplains will be in the Beaufort County city of Bluffton by Tuesday morning to offer emotional and spiritual care as previously evacuated residents return home, unaware of what they’ll find. Jack Munday, international director with the Rapid Response Team, asked for prayer for all individuals affected by the storm. Leaving home at the last minute understandably brings a whirlwind of emotions.
“You just can’t imagine how devastating that is,” Munday said. “They’ve left things behind simply because they couldn’t get them in the cars—photographs of loved ones [for instance]. It could be anything of value. So the fear they’re experiencing is probably more than overwhelming to them, so we need to pray for those people.
>>Help Send Crisis-trained Chaplains to Disaster Zones
“And also pray for the first responders. Many of them, their homes have been damaged as well, but they’re still on the job. It has been our experience over the years that they still serve and protect, and we certainly want to seek out how we can help them as well.”
Munday and the Rapid Response Team are evaluating future deployments and notably are looking toward Eastern North Carolina as an additional site pending the flooding there.
