MACON — Hephzibah Ministries is a sprawling campus tucked off a main drag of fast food restaurants in Macon. It’s normally a haven for children with troubled lives. But in the last few days, the children’s gymnasium has been turned into a refuge for people seeking safety from Hurricane Matthew.
Red Cross volunteers have lined military green-colored cots in the gym. It’s home for now to Cindy Mock, Melvin Williams, Julius Harley and some 75 other folks up from the Georgia coast and other environs in the path of Hurricane Matthew.
The storm barreling toward Georgia has brought together a cluster of strangers who never otherwise might have met.
They’ve been making their way to Hephzibah Childrens Home since Wednesday. Some who arrived had to be transferred to area nursing homes, said Maxine Batcha of the Red Cross because they were paralyzed.
They’re coming mostly from Savannah and Brunswick.
For some it’s their first time waiting out a storm in a shelter. But 26-year-old Harley is a hurricane veteran.
His last stint in a shelter was in 1999 when Floyd paid a visit. Harley was nine years old at the time. Since then, he’s become fascinated by the sheer strength of hurricanes. He studies weather patterns and hurricanes.
The wind is no big deal to him.
“I’m partly scared of the storm surge,” said Harley, a restaurant worker who made the three-hour trip by van from Savannah with his brother, sister, girlfriend and 11-month-old nephew. They arrived just before noon Friday.
Williams, a disabled paper mill worker from Kingsland just a few yards from the Florida line, has spent his time at the shelter talking with fellow evacuees and eating meals provided by Red Cross volunteers. He arrived on a chartered bus on Thursday.
Mock wasn’t so fortunate.
The former Savannah Police Department employee was among the throngs of people winding their way out of Savannah along I-16. She arrived early Friday after eight-hours on the road with her dog Crickett, a Chihuahua-Daschund mix she was forced to hand over to animal control when she got to the Macon Red Cross shelter.
Matthew is merely a “drizzle” given the other challenges Mock has faced in life. In 1994, she and her two sons watched as her husband committed suicide in front of them. Then five years ago, a roommate viciously slit her throat. She survived both although she is on disability.
“This is a mild shower,” Mock said of Matthew.
About the Author
