Published: September 20, 2008 08:58 pm            

AT RANDOM: Pastor works to help evacuees

As a pastor, David Valentine utilizes scripture to serve his congregation at the Covenant Fellowship Church in Huntsville.

But, for the last week, Valentine has found an equally important use for scripture as an evacuee shelter manager, and his application of scripture in that role is far from finished.

Valentine served as the shelter manager at Mance Park Middle School, one of the four evacuee shelters initially opened in Huntsville for those driven from their homes by Hurricane Ike.

“I’m a pastor, so I’ve really seen it all in my work,” he said. “As a shelter manager, you really see it all, and your biggest concern is just giving evacuees a safe place to be, fulfilling their basic needs and providing information.

“When I get tired, I just keep thinking of scripture, especially the golden rule that you treat others how you want to be treated, and you love neighbors as yourself.”

Valentine is no stranger to performing leadership roles in emergency situations.

Since 1992, Valentine has either assisted in shelter management or acted as the shelter manager more than a dozen times, and he said he has learned significant lessons during each of his experiences.

“I’ve worked at more than a dozen shelters when I was serving on the staff of other churches,” he said. “The first shelter I was involved with was set up in 1992 during Hurricane Andrew. I was in Lufkin at the time, and we took in evacuees from a hospital in the Port Arthur area including maybe 200 patients and nursing staff.

“What we ended up doing was putting those 200 patients in the fellowship hall and sending the nursing staff to the Sunday school rooms. It worked out pretty well, and that was my first experience.”

According to Valentine, the most important part of managing an evacuee shelter is providing those in a crisis situation with as much assurance and comfort as possible.

“I just keep thinking to myself, ‘If I were in this situation, how would I want my family to be treated?’” he said. “If you can give these people a sense of comfort and assurance, they’ll usually be calmed down.

“It helps when they have a safe place, somewhere they know they’re secure — that’s really the beginning of them rebuilding their lives.”

At the Mance Park Middle School shelter, Valentine said the biggest concern among the evacuees was staying informed about the latest news in their respective cities.

“The biggest issue in the Mance Park shelter, especially considering the curfews in other cities and in Huntsville, was letting the evacuees know when and if they could go back home,” he said. “Without electricity, and when our communications failed, there was a lot of uneasiness there.

“It was when we started picking up information from the Walker County Sheriff’s Department that we were able to help calm everyone down.”

Considering how large the group at Mance Park Middle School grew, Valentine said things at the shelter were comparatively peaceful even though power was out for days.

“There are always some people who panic, and it’s just natural when the anxiety overwhelms them,” he said. “In this large group, which got to 494 people, we only had a couple of high maintenance people, those we had to give a little bit more special attention or reassurance.”

What Valentine noticed most at the Mance Park shelter was the tendency of evacuees to lend a helping hand to those around them.

“The most amazing thing out of the shelter was seeing evacuees stepping up to help clean living quarters, their own personal space and even some of the bathrooms,” he said. “You see some very innovative people in emergency situations.”

Above all, Valentine said his greatest asset during the Mance Park shelter administration was the volunteers and Red Cross representatives he worked with.

“I’m always surprised, though I guess I shouldn’t be, at how great the people of Huntsville respond in situations like these,” he said. “This is an incredible community, and it’s always easy to be a shelter manager when you’ve got the support of great volunteers.

“Being a shelter manager entails a lot of responsibility, and it always helps to have people that care as much as you do.”

        

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