Big fire near Wanship and Rockport, about 10 miles east of Park City. Dry lightening strike about 2 pm. A number of homes have been damaged or destroyed (10 to 15 est), about 300 homes evacuated.

This is pretty expensive real estate, but wouldn't wish this on anyone. This is the most aggressive fire I can recall in Utah.

WHAT?

I have never heard of them opening the ward buildings for anybody but members. I remember them turning away non-members after one of the southern hurricanes and people made a big stink.

Are you sure it wasn't just for members?

So sad for the families.


Anagrammy

...the Church is deeply involved in FEMA/DHS disaster management. They can be relied on to help facilitate the Federal Guidelines involving martial law, natural disasters,social unrest, etc. This is why you DON'T want to be on ANY Church lists............

...check out "Clergy Response Teams".

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705384124/LDS-church-is-a-haven-for-fire-troops.html?pg=all

http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=6937987

Sounds like the buildings are open as general evacuation centers. LDS Inc has been more open about that sort of thing the last couple years. Maybe it was because of bad publicity after Katrina, but whatever the reason, they are being more helpful.

Power is reportedly out at one of the meeting houses, and I think the highway to Kamas is closed, and people are being advised to stay away from I-80 in east Summit County, so it is not clogged with lookie-loos.

For a fire just 3 hours old, this sucker is on a roll.

Good on them. That was the right thing to do. I hope they get that fire under control!

A big HUG to all involved in this situation. We Aussies know what fire can do BIG time. I hope the Church does all it can, I mean it IS in their area of ZION!!

Break out the "Helping Hands" T shirts and notify the media!

That part of the country is mostly white people. Maybe that's the difference.

+100

I did the mish in Florida.

The chapels in the areas I was in were used as shelters for Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004, in predominantly minority areas.

I'll give credit where it's due; the church has usually done reasonably well about opening its buildings for disaster recovery.

Whether or not they open for disasters depends on the local facilities manager and the relationship he has with the community.

From now on, we just have to refrain from telling LDS, Inc. what to do to make them a better church.

I remember the discussion that they should do this but don't. Now, here they are doing it.

How many yellow shirts are at the buildings? Are the chapel missionaries giving tours & lessons? Never miss a chance to hike up those stats.

They won't be doing this too much. The members aren't going to want to come in and clean the bathrooms after all those people have been through them. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to do that either.

Maybe they should make all refugees sign a contract to clean and repair the building when they're done with it.

Since the church's no longer have functional kitchens, and nobody is allowed to use them anyway, how good of a shelter can they be?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 02:35AM by Mia.

They did declare that they are opening the chapels to the public, the new missionary opportunity, along with the internet chugging of course.

I do hope these folks just get shelter and care and are not made to feel obliged to take part in discussions and chapel tours.

Briggy

Nice the chapels have been opened, the question is will the stoves and ovens in the kitchens be really used? Will the sheltered by asked to clean the restrooms? A UU follower wants to know...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2013 04:29PM by george.

If it's for EVERYbody, the. I say "FINALLY! They're acting like Christians."

My parents had a wildfire up near them in Northern CA a few years ago and had to evacuate. They opened the stake center, half an hour away from my parents little town - and asked members to take in people for the night. My parents were guests of a very nice family in their stake they didn't even know. They were able to divert the fire and only a handful of houses were lost - my parents' house was fine. But the church did step up in that instance. I'm the first to point out Mormons Behaving Badly but in all fairness, I have to mention when they get it right as well.