By Robert Dilday
As Hurricane Sandy maintained its relentless path toward the East Coast, the District of Columbia Baptist Convention postponed its annual meeting.
The D.C. convention, which includes about 140 congregations in Washington and suburban Maryland and Virginia, put its Oct. 29-30 meeting on hold “in an effort to ensure the safety of our D.C. Baptist Convention family.”
“We won’t set a new date until after the storm has passed,” said executive director/minister Ricky Creech. “It will depend on the impact we receive.”
Nine U.S. states have declared states of emergency as the Category 1 storm bears down on the East Coast. Experts say the nearly 1,000-mile-wide storm could be the largest to hit the mainland in U.S. history.
Experts describe it as a rare, hybrid “super storm” created by an Arctic jet stream wrapping itself around a tropical storm, capable of causing up to 12 inches of rain in some areas, as well as up to 3 feet of snowfall in the Appalachian Mountains from West Virginia to Kentucky.
In anticipation of Sandy’s impact, schools, institutions and businesses throughout the region closed and transportation systems saw serious disruptions.
Both Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond and the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Arlington, Va., canceled Monday classes. Wake Forest University School of Divinity in Winston-Salem, N.C. — well west of the storm’s projected path — was forced to postpone its annual Steelman Lecture when lecturer Diana Butler Bass was unable to travel. U.S. airlines had canceled more than 7,400 flights as of Oct. 28.
The Virginia Baptist Resource Center in suburban Richmond, which houses the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and other organizations, also will be closed Monday, as will the D.C. convention building in downtown Washington.
In North Carolina, where coastal communities began seeing Sandy’s effects Sunday, bridges were closed and ferries had shut down operations. Sections of N.C. 12 — the main artery on the Outer Banks — were flooded and impassable.
There were no reports yet of damage to churches, most of which appeared to hold Sunday morning worship services as scheduled.
Matt Cook, pastor of First Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., said there appeared to be “minimal impact” there and that Sunday morning’s congregation was “a little smaller but not much.”
In Virginia, Eddie Heath, a field strategist for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board, reported some churches in the state’s Tidewater region canceled services.