This photo was taken by NRT member Rick Turner as his plane prepared to land Tuesday. Smoke is blowing west, toward San Diego.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has deployed National Response Team members the Reverend Bill Neely and Rick Turner to San Diego in response to a request from the Presbytery of San Diego. The following is their initial report on the visit.

As we approached the San Diego Airport, both Bill Neely and Rick Turner saw first-hand the cause of the disaster. Bill arrived at night and could see fires for miles in each direction. Rick arrived early the next morning and smoke covered the land for as far as the eye could see. There were some areas where the flames were at least fifty feet high.

Bill and Rick met with San Diego Presbytery staff Clark Cowden, executive presbyter, Linda Therin, stated clerk, and Marcia Borgman, director of finance and administration, on Tuesday, October 23, 2007. After this meeting, Clark Cowden requested an initial response of funds to begin assisting his churches with responses. [PDA wired One Great Hour of Sharing funds to fulfill this request.]

During the meeting Clark Cowden reported that the latest number of evacuees was 513,000. Eight pastors from the presbytery had to evacuate their homes. Two of the six presbytery staff had to evacuate. Three churches are still in the line of the fires and are not secure yet.

Rick Turner had lunch with Ray Sparling, associate minister of missions at Rancho Bernardo Presbyterian Church. Ray has been actively involved in getting help for the members of his church and community and organized a gathering of members and leadership of Rancho Bernardo Church. Three meetings have been scheduled.

The plan is to brief them on the current situation and ask them to determine areas in which the church and presbytery can help the members and community and then divide the duties among the leadership to balance the work load.

Church members and people who live in the community will be invited to attend this meeting. Ray will listen to their concerns and explain what the church, presbytery and PDA are planning to do to help them. We will also advise of what other groups are doing (example: Red Cross, FEMA, etc.).

On Wednesday, October 24, 2007, Rick and Bill met with 25+ representatives from Rancho Bernardo Presbyterian Church. One representative was there from Village Community Church and another was there from Faith Presbyterian Church.

Several hours were spent deciding who they could help and how they would implement their response. The attendees broke into small groups. Each group was assigned an area of responsibility. Bill and Rick met with the Communications group. Bill and Rick outlined the mode of FLAPDAN and SCDAN (Florida and South Carolina) disaster response groups, and it was decided that each church should appoint a disaster response coordinator and the presbytery should find a volunteer to coordinate the communications between these volunteers. Other groups covered responsibilities including, donations, volunteers, spiritual care, referrals and other ways of assisting those in need.

Bill and Rick visited some of the areas that were still under fire watch and set the agenda for tomorrow’s (Thursday, October 25, 2007) meeting with church leaders from the entire presbytery.