State Council News

Church becomes haven for evacuees

Posted Sep 07, 2011
by Mark

By Kevin Robbins
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

BASTROP — The church that never closes is three miles from the fire. When the wind blows just right, the smoke looms over the grounds like a churning surf of grays and whites, but there is safety and sanctuary inside the parish hall, where the hopeless came for hope and a box of fried chicken.

Smoke looms overhead as people look through donated clothes at Ascension Catholic Church in Bastrop on Monday. By that evening, more than 100 people had come to wait out the blaze. Photo Alberto Martínez /AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Ron Sebert, a retired salesman unsure about his property, spent Sunday and Monday at Ascension Catholic Church. There he met Michael Pease, a truck driver, and other members of the Knights of Columbus Council 14943 to begin another cycle of giving people who surrendered their houses to the fire a place to be as long as they need to be there.

“Some of our Knights have lost homes,” Sebert said.

The church became a sanctioned evacuee station Sunday after it became clear the fires in and near Bastrop would displace hundreds, if not more.

By late Monday, more than 100 people had come to Ascension to wait out the smoke and flames.

Lee Mobley, 73, sat with his wife, Martha, and tried not to ponder what he might not ever see again. The retired chief petty officer in the Navy had 15 minutes to leave, he said.

“It’s tough to make a decision in 15 minutes about what you’re going to get from your house,” he said solemnly.

“We left 22 years of memories from the military there,” he added. He also abandoned a car in the garage.

He’d been saving it, he explained, for his grandson.

Others at the church worried about the condition of their wedding pictures and heirloom furniture.

Brenda Townsend, a contractor who lives in the pines, said she left her house Sunday and slept at a Shell station at the bottom of a hill. She heard Monday morning that animals were being evacuated to the rodeo arena and drove there to see if her donkey had been rescued. It hadn’t; she left a description.

Townsend said too much of Central Texas is on fire for her to stay. “If I have to, I’m going to Houston,” she said. “Because it just doesn’t sound right.”

Trucks lined the church parking lot throughout the day. Families brought toys, clothes and pallets of water.

One truck delivered hundreds of backpacks on a trailer. “The disaster team is here!” a church member announced inside the parish hall.

Volunteers streamed outside. They formed a line, like a bucket brigade, to empty the trailer of the backpacks. Marie Adams of Pflugerville brought her grandsons — Ethan, 9, and Wyatt, 7 — to help at the church, because the boys didn’t have school, and she wanted to expose their young minds to selflessness.

“Go help unload the backpacks for the school kids,” she told Ethan and Wyatt, who did as they were told.

Two men from an electronics store brought televisions. The manager of a sandwich shop brought coupons for free sandwiches. A pizza restaurant delivered pizza.

Outside, under a pecan tree, a young girl with a ponytail spoke on the phone. One hand covered her face.

“Just now?” she sobbed. “I don’t know what to do.”

Dan Krischke, a 61-year-old retired Army veteran, supervised the parish hall from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., a job made simple because his fellow parishioners understood their work. Some of them made sure the colander remained full of green apples. Some made sure the donated clothes were stacked by type of garment. Others put rosary beads in little plastic bags and placed them on a table.

“The human spirit is just remarkable,” said Krischke, a church member who watched the fires Monday morning from the top of his barn and knew he had to come to Ascension.

Later, after the sun and the wind had gone down for the night, the church members gathered in the sanctuary to pray for the hurting community.

Sebert of the Knights of Columbus prepared to lead the recitation of the rosary. Then a man wearing a green T-shirt and a weary face approached.

The man placed an object wrapped in a blanket at the altar. “This is a statue that we rescued from our house today,” he said.

He removed the towel to reveal the image of Mary.

“I just thought I’d put it here,” the man said, “while we prayed.”