March 2019—Wilmington, North Carolina

Oleander United Methodist Church is a small building along a busy thoroughfare linking downtown Wilmington and Highway 74 going to Wrightsville Beach. Among the interesting features are a protruding brick façade and a tower of breeze blocks integrated above the sanctuary’s front entrance. I reached out to Oleander a few times but was never able to make contact with the leadership.

In September 2018, Wilmington suffered a direct hit from hurricane Florence and is still recovering from the event. The storm surge ranged from 9 to 13 feet and the region experienced 20 to 30 inches of rain. I don’t know to what extent it effected Oleander UMC. I drove through the region in early October to get a sense of the damage. Naturally, the residents of Wilmington were dealing with the physical and psychological damage of the weather event. Six months later, the bright, blue tarpaulins still dot middle-class neighborhoods and four-story mansions, half-constructed with exposed Tyvek panels, vacation mansions are sprinkled about Carolina Beach.