As most of you are aware, many communities in Eastern North Carolina suffered a great loss over a week ago when hurricane Matthew came up the coast and brought severe flooding. There are so many people that have been affected by the repercussions of this storm who have their lost homes and have no place to go now. In our small community in the Vass/Lobelia area, our greatest concern was a nearby dam that came very close to breaking because of very high floodwaters. The many families that were evacuated from homes, less than a mile away, would have a suffered a catastrophic loss if the dam had broke. Thankfully, because of many emergency responders sent from all over the state of NC who worked non-stop day and night, the dam was secured and the evacuation was lifted yesterday, Oct. 16, at 3:00 PM EST.
Although there were many homes in our small community that were flooded during the day of the storm, our ministry facility was spared from any major damage or flooding. We were very blessed and protected but we did incur some damage to our roof as up to 30 shingles were blown off at the peak, exposing areas into our attic. We also found 4 serious leaks from the roof that were not from the shingle loss area, that will need to be repaired ASAP before any sufficient rain comes. The other two important things that we suffered loss at, was all our food from two refrigerators had to be thrown out, (mostly frozen things), because of the loss of power for an entire week. Also, because of of the storm hitting Saturday through Sunday, we lost an entire weekend of income, as we were forced to cancel our Waiting Room meeting, and a ministry engagement we had scheduled near by. It had to be canceled on Sunday because of downed trees and the loss of power.
This week, we need to get the roof completely repaired, and hopefully take care of many monthly financial obligations that are due. If you would like to help us with any of these immediate needs, we would greatly appreciate it. God bless you all and thank you.
Don & Debi Gatlyn
To make a donation to help with the “Hurricane Matthew Loss and Damage”, please make your checks out to "D&D Ministries" and mail your gifts to:
D&D Ministries
P.O. Box 126
Vass, NC 28394
Note: For those who would rather give a gift online, please click here:
