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Friday, Oct 06, 2006
Posted on Mon, Sep. 11, 2006
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09.11.01 FIVE YEARS LATER

S.C. relief workers lent an ear to victims

By BERTRAM RANTIN
brantin@thestate.com
John Scherberger, center, a disaster relief chaplain with the S.C. Baptist Convention, talks with a New York resident who is wearing a photograph of a man missing after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
COURTESY OF THE S.C. BAPTIST CONVENTION
John Scherberger, center, a disaster relief chaplain with the S.C. Baptist Convention, talks with a New York resident who is wearing a photograph of a man missing after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
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As Clifton Satterwhite watched on television as the second of two planes crashed into the World Trade Center, he had a revelation.

“Something said (to me), ‘You’re going to be called in,’” he said.

Satterwhite had every reason to suspect as much. As director of the disaster relief group of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, Satterwhite had trained for such a situation, all the time praying one would never come.

But when it did, Midlands residents were there to lend their hands, hearts and ears.

Satterwhite led a local disaster relief response team that traveled to New York in the days and weeks after the attacks to counsel victims and rescue workers.

“Our job there was to listen to people’s stories,” Satterwhite said of the local team of hospital and police chaplains, pastors and other support staff. “We were not there to win converts. We were there to be a presence — somebody to say, ‘I’m sorry.’”

Just months earlier, many in the group had taken part in a national victims assistance training conference in Pickens County. The conference focused on crisis counseling and intervention.

“We had just trained 42 people for a week,” Satterwhite said, adding he had no idea at the time when they would use that training.

Those answers would come in the weeks after the attacks as Satterwhite and other members of the crisis team sat with, listened to and prayed alongside those who had been injured or who lost family members or friends.

Much of the group’s time was spent talking with rescue workers at ground zero.

“Sometimes they would find a body or just a helmet,” Satterwhite said.

He recalls time spent at the Compassion Center in the city, where many had brought in DNA samples to match with victims.

“I’ll never get out of my mind ever, just walls and walls (filled with signs) of missing people,” he said. “Everywhere you looked, you saw a picture of a missing person or you talked to someone who had a family member or a friend who had been lost.”

The S.C. Baptist Convention team included volunteers from across the state. Among them were Paul Hamilton, head chaplain at The Regional Center of Orangeburg and Calhoun Counties, and Zane Brown, director of missions for the Colleton Baptist Association.

“Our job was just to engage them in conversations and let them tell the stories — what they remember seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling,” said Brown, who spent a second week working directly with Port Authority police officers, who lost 13 of their co-workers.

“They were having a tough time,” Brown said. “Some of them had not seen their families in a long time. We prayed with them. We encouraged them.”

Since returning to Columbia, members of the Baptist Convention team have met to share and talk about their experiences.

“They’re continually telling their stories,” Satterwhite said of the volunteers.

And while that has offered a measure of healing, Satterwhite said it’s important not to dwell on the past.

“You want to build on your future because you just never know when the next one is going to be, and you always have to be prepared.”

OTHERS WENT TO HELP

Midlands volunteer response to the 9/11 crisis went beyond the S.C. Baptist Convention.

The Red Cross sent volunteers including Bill Bartlett of Columbia, while Fred McCurdy and Michael Finch were part of a team of S.C. coroners who traveled to New York to assist in identifying and embalming victims.

Red Cross employee Rhe Adams, who lives in Irmo, spent three months in New York as a case worker. Her job was to help victims get back on their feet — in many cases finding new jobs or locating new places to live.

“Each morning I arrived at the service center to be greeted by hundreds of people who had waited all night in the cold to get relief,” Adams said. “As I walked by them each morning, I saw the pain and the struggle in their eyes.”

Many from the Midlands business community also donated their time and resources. Some traveled to New York to help; others sent supplies.

Satterwhite said that while the daily showers in makeshift trailers and meals at mass kitchens were outside his norm, it didn’t compare to the inconvenience suffered by those directly affected by the attacks.

“I’ll never forget those days we spent in New York,” he said. “You come back from one of those trips and you appreciate everything you have.”