56 | November/December 2017
A
F E A T U R E
A couple of days aer Hurricane Harvey finally
le Texas, Kelly Mathis went with several people to a
Fayetteville convenience store to fill the gas tanks of work
trucks and generators. He and the others all wore shirts
indicating they were a United Methodist Church disaster
response team and three people at the store asked if they
were headed to Texas to help with recovery efforts there.
No, they were told. e team was repairing local
homes that were ruined last year by Hurricane Matthew;
they wanted to be able to continue their work if a gas
shortage occurred because of Harvey.
"And the comment was, 'Oh, that's still going on?'"
Mathis recalled.
Recovery work from Hurricane Matthew is indeed still
going on, more than a year aer the storm devastated
parts of Fayetteville, Lumberton and elsewhere in eastern
North Carolina. And it almost certainly will continue for
years to come – even if most residents of those areas don't
realize it.
"e general public has no idea that there are however
many houses out there that are still damaged and not
rebuilt from Hurricane Matthew," said Mathis, who's
a construction manager at the Fayetteville disaster
response center operated by the N.C. Conference of
United Methodist Churches.
"at's not being critical," said Don Evans, the site
coordinator for the center. "It's just out of sight, out of
mind."
A Y E A R A F T E R H U R R I C A N E M AT T H E W
The Recovery Continues
BY CATHERINE PRITCHARD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW WONDERLY
