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Intracoastal City. As the rising sun broke through rosy clouds Thursday, seven Acadiana residents marked the start of the 2006 hurricane season in prayer.
They drove in before daybreak from Abbeville and Broussard, gathering on the shore of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The song of birds and the splash of fish punctuated the silence between their prayers.
“Bless us with your calm strength. Relieve us of anxiety,” prayed Jenny Milligan of Abbeville. “You will sustain us.”
Residents in parts of Vermilion and Cameron parishes lost homes and businesses to Hurricane Rita’s wind and water last September. Many still are trying to recover.
“People are very nervous, very anxious that that was the beginning of a season of terror, and more hurricanes are going to destroy their lives this year when they haven’t recovered from last year,” said Jim Grant of Abbeville, a member of the Vermilion Faith Community of Care.
Previous hurricanes taught him lessons about the power of prayer.
“God speaks to the elements. Prayer speaks to God,” he said.
The sunrise prayer service, organized by the Vermilion Faith Community of Care, was one of at least four held Thursday in Abbeville, Kaplan, Lafayette, and Intracoastal City.
Prayer services for a safe hurricane season were being held throughout the South on Thursday, with Baha’i Faith groups joining in from across the United States and the Ivory Coast of Africa, said Emilia Bellone of Broussard.
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