After receiving the call of the roof collapse, Fire Chief Kent Hall said he feared the worst, knowing that the fellowship hall is usually a bevy of activity. While he said the building is “probably a total loss” he was just glad there was no one inside.
“We vote here, have breakfast and dinner. Kids are always inside, in the gym on the stage,” Hall said. “I know this is a church, but I have to say God was watching over this because it’s a miracle no one got hurt.”
But the hall also was more than just the scene of community bean dinners and fish fries, said Wayne Cox, a churchgoer for 26 years. It was recently named for the church’s former pastor, the Rev. Randy Wallace, “a man who was so loved here” and who passed away in August 2009 after battling a rare form of leukemia.
“I couldn’t believe this had happened. I wanted to see it for myself,” Cox said while watching insulation from the crumbled roof blow across the parking lot like snow. He couldn’t put to words how the scene made him feel. For several moments he just stared at the wreckage, swallowing a lump in his throat before whispering, “It’s awful.”
Hall said he believed the roof fell in from the weight of the snow built up during the past storms.
Even while the Rev. Kenny Brewer said he just “felt like crying” looking at the damage, crews from Old School Construction were called to assess the repairs.
The walls are bowed from the weight of the roof and Hall had crews rope off the building.
“We are going to go on regardless,” Brewer said. “We will trust the Lord to go with us and we will built it back.”
George Holland, chairman of the church board, said the building was insured and he hoped repairs would be done “in the next three months.”
There were no damage estimates available Friday. Church services will still be held this Sunday and junior church services normally in the hall will be moved, Holland said.
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