Since Hurricane Floyd in 1999, North East Church and facilities have been flooded 4 different times with 2 of those times being utterly catastrophic. In 2018, North East Church experienced it’s most severe and devastating flood damage due to Hurricane Florence. At that time, flood waters were so high, that it kissed the 2nd floor of the church building and reached above the ceiling in its Fellowship Hall building. While the church facilities experienced such catastrophic damage, the people of the Northeast community surrounding the church experienced the same crippling destruction. 85% of the Church body had been flooded. Of those that weren’t flooded, almost all of them had siblings, parents, or kids that were. Because of the damage it experienced, North East Church was unable to provide facilities to help those in the Northeast community.
The front of the Sanctuary (notice the front light is still on). The water is roughly 10 feet deep here.This is the fire escape exit for the second floor of the education building. The water touched the bottom of the floor boards of these classrooms. The Fellowship Hall can be seen in the far left of this picture. The water was roughly 12 1/2 feet deep there.About a week later the water had subsided enough for us to enter and check the damage. Notice the PackRat in the back. We had recently renovated our upstairs children’s Church space and it was full of tables, chairs, and some other miscellaneous items.The water level was so deep at the Fellowship Hall that it went over the ceiling and brought it down. The congregation currently holds services in this exact space thanks mostly to North Haven Church in Raleigh. They sent crews of people to help clean out and rebuild the space for us to use. A big thank you to them and several others for their help and generosity!A view of the inside of the Sanctuary. From the forecasts, we were worried that water may come into our Fellowship Hall and downstairs classrooms, so we moved everything we could move into the sanctuary before the storm. We never expected water would enter the sanctuary.Note our Bible in the middle of all of the mess. The Bible always sat open on top of the communion table at the front of the sanctuary during service. When we went inside after the flood, it was the only thing left dry! The table had floated up with the water and somehow set back down without tipping over. The pulpit even fell over right behind the table. You can see the water line on the wall (about 5 feet deep in that part of the sanctuary).
After Hurricane Florence, it was decided to build a new facility OUTSIDE of the flood zone so that during future catastrophic events, North East Church can be a beacon for the community and provide facilities to help and aid the community during times of need. The construction will be done in two phases. Phase 1 consists of the Fellowship Hall and classrooms and was completed in November of 2023. Phase 2 will be the construction of the Sanctuary.
Phase 1 construction has started and walls are going up. This picture was taken 2/20/22. Trusses being placed 2/22/22.
