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| January 7, 2009 |
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Catholic Floridians brace for stormHURRICANE RESOURCESDisaster Supplies Kit List National Hurricane Center Florida Catholic Conference FEMA NOAA ORLANDO | The Victorian Gothic–style stone church of St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish in Key West has stood for a little more than 100 years, weathering all the storms the tropics have sent its way. Monday morning, Aug. 18, it stood boarded up and battened down, waiting for the arrival of another — Tropical Storm Fay. “It’s moving in. It think the eye is pretty much going to cross Key West, but that won’t be until around 10 o’clock tonight,” Deacon Peter Batty of St. Mary said by telephone to the Florida Catholic’s state headquarters in Orlando at around noon Monday. The official forecast from the National Hurricane Center at that point called for Fay to hit the island in the late evening as a strong tropical storm with sustained winds of 63 mph hour and gusts up to 75 mph. Forecasters predicted the storm would intensify to a Category 1 hurricane before making landfall on the southwest coast of Florida, probably around Naples, Tuesday morning. Tropical storm force winds and possible tornados were expected in central and south Florida as the weakened storm moves northeast across the state Tuesday and Wednesday. Because the storm’s rain and wind were expected to be felt in a wide swath — and hurricane forecasts are not guaranteed in track or intensity — Monday’s preparations by Catholic entities were widespread, yet measured. “It’s basically going to be a rain event with some wind,” Deacon Marcus Hepburn, emergency management specialist for the Florida Catholic Conference, said Monday morning. “While it may hit the west coast, it’s not going to be a revisit of Charley.” Hepburn coordinates Catholic Network Florida, the collaborative disaster response and recovery effort of the state’s seven Catholic Charities agencies. The network, which last year won the Humanitarian Award at the Governor’s Hurricane Conference, has three communications trailers that can be dispatched anywhere in the state from their bases in Pensacola, Orlando and Miami. As of Monday afternoon, they had not been activated. Though counties in the Venice Diocese were predicted to get the worst of the winds and rain, tornados — which could develop 100 miles or more from there — were expected to be the most dangerous aspect of the storm, Hepburn said. “People shouldn’t be surprised if they see tornado warnings go up,” he said Though the storm’s mainland landfall and path for Tuesday and beyond were uncertain Monday, the situation in the Keys was more clear. All Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Miami were closed, and scheduled to remain closed Tuesday. Churches from San Pedro Parish in Plantation Key to St. Mary in Key West were boarded up after Masses on Sunday. All visitors were ordered to leave the Keys, but attendance at 7 o’clock Mass on Sunday morning showed that some visitors, and virtually all regular parishioners, had stayed put, Deacon Batty said. “Most of the tourists have left and it feels like Key West used to 25 years ago,” he said. “St. Mary’s is preparing and we are closing the chapel of perpetual adoration at noon today (Monday) and will reopen on Wednesday morning at 8 a.m. People are stopping by the grotto to pray as they usually do.”
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