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he 1,000-year flood in South Carolina Oct. 3-5 was nothing short of
devastating. Dozens of dams breached, 19 people lost their lives,
and thousands of residents had to evacuate their homes. Less than two
miles from Columbia International University, houses in the Denny Terrace
neighborhood flooded with up to six feet of water. Remarkably, CIU’s
campus was spared any major damage.
Like many others in the Columbia area, CIU Junior Class President
Savannah Blest wanted to help those whose homes were damaged. With
the help of her church, Riverside Community Church, she organized a day
of service so that CIU students could provide aid to families who needed it.
“Right after fall break, there had been a lot of talk about [students] wanting
to get involved,” Blest said. “We wanted to give people an opportunity,
because a lot of people wanted to serve but didn’t really know how to.”
Riverside Community Church is a part of the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA)
which sponsors a crisis response team as part of their missions agency, ReachGlobal. The
crisis response team found families who needed help, and sent workers as they were
available.
“Some (CIU students) were in a crawlspace gutting, pulling everything out that had
flooded,” Blest said. “There was another group just off Monticello Road, and they were
gutting a house and taking the wet moldy stuff out.”
Blest says she learned a few things in the cleanup.
T
CIU
STUDENTS
SERVE
the
COMMUNITY
By Melissa McCutchan, CIU Student Writer
Frank Edson
of Riverside
Community
Church explains
the job to CIU
students Mark
Gossage, Alicia
Heatherly,
and Cameron
Lickliter before
entering a
crawlspace.
(Photo courtesy
of Cameron
Lickliter)
18
CIU Today
Winter 2016
A 1,000-YEAR FLOOD