HALIFAX, NS-The congregation of Dartmouth First Church of the Nazarene sprang into action in the aftermath of Hurricane Juan, when gusts up to 150 kilometres an hour left much of Nova Scotia, including Halifax Regional Municipality, and parts of Prince Edward Island without power in late September.

Pastor Ralph Yarn, who lived in Ontario during the ice storm of 2000, encouraged his congregation to have an emergency preparedness plan. So when the hurricane struck, Yarn and some of his congregation were quick to gather a generator, barbeque and a coleman stove and to get the word out to emergency workers that there was hot coffee and later hot meals available at the church.

They immediately became a relief centre for the many residents of local apartments evacuated from their buildings, as well as for others in the city still without electricity. Word spread throughout the neighbourhood and on the radio and soon food and support from the community and other churches started pouring in.

Contents of freezers were donated to First Church to be used before the food was rendered unsafe because of thawing. A local soup kitchen, closed because of the blackout, donated supplies. By the end of the first week, 1,000 people were fed or helped in some way by the volunteers at the church.

"It was a real team effort," says Yarn. "Our people had a heart to help."

Most people living along the Atlantic coast expected Hurricane Juan to be no more vicious than a strong winter storm.

But when Juan collided with land around midnight on September 28, everything shook ferociously and the roar was eerily unearthly. Before moving off through central Nova Scotia and into Prince Edward Island, five people were dead as Juan uprooted trees and ripped power lines from poles, leaving 300,000 others in a blackout.

Elsewhere roofs were ripped off buildings, while boats, wharves and barns were destroyed. The QEII Health Sciences Centre in Halifax was also badly damaged and had to close 16 operating rooms.

"It was a most amazing week," says Nancy Draper, minister of Christian education at First Baptist Church in Dartmouth. "It felt like a week out of time. All life as we knew it ceased for two or three days. The city was designated a disaster area and put under EMO [Emergency Measures Organization].

"Everyone was ordered to stay at home except for essential services personnel. Many couldn’t leave their homes because of damage to their home, cars or because their street was completely blocked off by fallen trees and power wires."

In the midst of the devastation, the Christian community mobilized. The Salvation Army Maritime division immediately implemented their plan for natural disasters.

"We have been helping people with everything from a hot meal, to blankets, to baby formula and diapers," says Scott Costen, spokesperson for The Salvation Army (SA).

The SA’s community response unit dispatched a mobile soup kitchen door-to-door providing hot meals to those without power as well as to power crews, and military personnel who were helping with the cleanup. By the tenth day following the storm, Costen reported that SA had delivered meals to 3,500 residents.

The community rallied around the church’s efforts to help. "We like to say, ‘Help us, help others’ and that’s what people are doing in this time of need," says Costen.

"Being on the front lines during emergencies and natural disasters such as Hurricane Juan…is very representative of what the SA does," says Costen. "It’s a long-standing tradition."

Many churches responded to community needs at a grassroots level. City Heights Church in Dartmouth, on the outskirts of Halifax Regional Municipality, received a call from someone concerned about housebound seniors and the sick in communities still without power after a week. One member of the congregation offered a generator for a woman who needed it for her ventilator, while others made hot casseroles, delivered later the same day to four different communities.

Trenton Nazarene in rural Nova Scotia served as a temporary Red Cross Relief Centre.

Neighbours stranded at home spontaneously gathered together to help each other clean up the mess left behind by the strong winds.

"Everyone’s loss became the community’s loss," says Draper. "People who had generators, chain saws or hammers and ability became the resource of the community.

"There was an often unexpressed groundswell of concern as to which neighbours might be in need of additional support-the elderly, the sick, the single person or any family who might have few resources to cope with these new demands."