THE NEIGHBORLY THING TO DO From David Flick
W
hen Oliver Cone, Transfiguration’s senior warden, arrived at the church that frigid Ash Wednesday, what he saw was both appalling and inspiring. Water from a broken pipe had spread from the north transept to the nave to the gathering space, and had been creeping past the Memorial Garden toward Roper Hall. But he also saw a group of church members and friends who had come together quickly to clear the f lood, with brooms, a Wet-Vac and hours-long persistence. “We were splashing through water a couple of inches deep,” he said. “It was scary, but in one way it was a joyous sight.”
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Hours later, the volunteers succeeded in clearing the water, preventing a costly disaster. And they had once again demonstrated that Transf iguration is a church lifted by a caring community. “For most people, it was the f irst time that week they had been outside their houses,” Mr. Cone said. “Hillcrest was so covered with snow you couldn’t see the sidewalks. The fact that so many people came out is really remarkable.” Bracken Reece, director of operations, estimated the damage at $24,000, mostly to drywall. But had it not been caught in time, the damage would have been much worse.
If John Selzer, a neighbor, had not been f ighting cabin fever, the problem might not have been caught as soon as it was.
“Had the water risen much higher,” he said, “we could have lost all the pews, it could have damaged the organ. The route it was going, the water could have rolled down into church off ices.”
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