Test of faith: St. Joseph Abbey faces $3 million in flood damage
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on March 18, 2016 at 9:15 AM, updated March 18, 2016 at 9:55 AM
During the harsh winter of 1907, less than a decade after Benedictine monks established a home on 1,200 acres near Covington, embers from an over-stoked furnace reduced their hastily constructed wooden monastery and seminary to rubble. Such was the devastation that the monks contemplated returning to the Indiana diocese from which they had been lured by the archbishop of New Orleans, Francis Janssens, who sought to develop native clergy to serve the city's Roman Catholics.
But just before they started packing up their mules for the journey north, two unlikely benefactors appeared from out of the blue to help resuscitate St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary College. The Fabacher family, owners of the Jackson Brewery in New Orleans, secured a $50,000 loan that jump-started reconstruction. Meanwhile, national news coverage of the abbey's plight caught the attention of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated a trainload of steel for the reconstruction effort. Buoyed by those and other do-gooders, the abbey rose again, according to an historical account of the seminary called "Century of Grace."
Now, having been walloped by the flooding that washed across the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain over the past week, the abbey is once again hoping for help from yonder. On March 11 at around 7 p.m., water from the nearby Bogue Falaya River began to rise rapidly and inundated the campus in St. Benedict. Almost every building took in 24 to 36 inches of water -- except for the vaunted church.
The Rev. Gregory Boquet, president and rector of St. Joseph Seminary College, said campus cleanup alone is estimated at $3 million. The abbey has no flood insurance.
"We're going to do it," Boquet said of the cleanup, which has been described as a monumental undertaking. "It will be done as quickly and safely as possible. Anyone who can help, we'd be very glad to hear from you."
Bouquet is hoping FEMA will cover most of the recovery costs. But even with 75 percent federal funding, the abbey would still face about $750,000 in expenses. Then there is the cost of restoration, which has not been determined. A fund to help defray the cost has been set up at www.helptheabbey.com.
Worse than 1927
The abbey's 125-year history is a testament to the ups and downs of the monastic way of life. In 1889, the religious pioneers from Indiana settled on a 2,020-acre tract near Ponchatoula, where they planted the seed for St. Joseph Abbey. Hardship quickly ensued as the settlers found the land was unworkable for agriculture. To make matters worse, the property included large areas of wetlands that bred disease-carrying mosquitoes.
In 1901, they decided to move to the current property, part of which is about 100 yards from the Bogue Falaya River. But having rebuilt after the devastating fire, the abbey once again faced disaster in the great Mississippi River Valley flood of 1927. Described as the most destructive river flood in the history of the U.S., the rising water killed 246 people in seven states. The abbey property had fewer buildings at the time, yet most of them were inundated.
But the flood of March 2016 was worse, abbey officials said. A faint water line from the 1927 deluge remains visible on the side of the abbey's rectory. Next to it, abbey officials placed a piece of red tape to mark last week's flood. The red tape is two inches higher than the old mark.
Now the entire campus is closed. Its 138 seminarians -- the largest enrollment in recent history -- were sent home. About 30 monks who call the abbey home also were displaced. The church and the retreat house are closed, and all Holy Week activities have been cancelled.
St. Joseph's Woodworks, which makes and sells caskets to the public to raise money for the abbey, was knocked out of operation, at least temporarily. Deacon Mark Coudrain, who runs the casket operation and is director of abbey's Christian Life Center, said the woodworking shop contains about $200,000 worth of equipment. He and others on Wednesday were trying to dry the equipment in hopes that most of it will still work.
About 20 inches of water made it into the shop. Several wooden caskets were destroyed. One of them was turned over this week to Audubon Zoo for its swamp exhibit, Coudrain said.
A bee-keeping operation based at the abbey to produce honey also suffered a blow. Beekeeper Jeff Horchoff, who bottles and sells the honey in the campus gift shop and donates proceeds to the abbey, said about 300,000 bees drowned in the flood. Of the 18 hives that were producing honey, only three survived. This spring's honey harvest is not expected to yield much product.
The abbey also runs a bakery that produces 2,000 loaves of bread a week for poor and homeless people. It, too, was knocked out of operation.
The retreat center, which hosts about 3,000 guests each year, also is closed. All retreats have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
The acclaimed abbey church, a Romanesque-style structure that is on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the few buildings that didn't get water. However, the basement, where electrical and air conditioning systems are located, flooded. That leaves the church without power.
Abbey officials are a bit concerned about the opulent paintings on the interior walls of the church. In 2014, two painting conservators from South Carolina were brought in with the delicate task of restoring Dutch monk Gregory De Wit's elaborate artwork, which has adorned the walls and ceilings for six decades. De Wit spent 10 years on the art project at the abbey, finishing around 1950.
Experts think humidity exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina, which knocked out electrical power for an extended period, caused salt to crystalize and leach through the plaster walls of the church. The result was a dimming of original artwork that is an important part of the abbey's storied history.
To prevent a recurrence, dozens of fans and large blowers have been brought into the church to ward off dampness. The abbey has no timetable for when public Masses will resume at the church, which was dedicated in 1931.
Lots of fans
The church is not the only building with fans. Hundreds of blue fans, along with thick, air-blowing yellow tubes, can be found in every building on campus as workers try to dry out buildings.
In the campus library, thousands of books have been pulled from shelves in an effort to combat mold. An army of workers was scurrying through the library Wednesday afternoon, weaving through the tubing and other restoration equipment.
Dormitories, the rectory and classroom buildings throughout the campus have taken on the same look. A dormitory dedicated in 2014 is among the damaged buildings.
Abbey communications manager James Shields said he does not think any irreplaceable religious artifacts were lost to the flood, and that most of the damage is repairable. But the damage is extensive, the cleanup effort daunting.
Unlike flooding in other parts of St. Tammany Parish, the water that washed onto the abbey property came and left quickly. Coudrain, who stayed on the campus throughout the event, said water rose quickly Friday night but had subsided by Saturday morning. As a result, buildings and equipment got wet but did not soak for long.
Seminarians were not able to leave campus once water started rising; they moved to the second floor of the dormitory. Once the water went down, they were allowed to leave campus. Abbey officials hope to resume classed Monday, if electricity is restored.
Despite the damage inflicted by flood, Bouquet said, the abbey will carry on its mission. "We will continue our very long tradition of educating young men for the priesthood and praying for the needs of the world."
Benedictine Abbot Justin Brown, the leader of the monastic community, told the Clarion Herald that while the abbey struggles to regain its footing, its leadership realizes that many people in the community are in an even worse situation because of flooding of their homes. He said prayers are being offered for all to recover and gain strength from these difficult times.
"The Benedictine monks have been around for 1,500 years as an order. We have learned to stand firm and keep the faith."
But just before they started packing up their mules for the journey north, two unlikely benefactors appeared from out of the blue to help resuscitate St. Joseph Abbey and Seminary College. The Fabacher family, owners of the Jackson Brewery in New Orleans, secured a $50,000 loan that jump-started reconstruction. Meanwhile, national news coverage of the abbey's plight caught the attention of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, who donated a trainload of steel for the reconstruction effort. Buoyed by those and other do-gooders, the abbey rose again, according to an historical account of the seminary called "Century of Grace."
Now, having been walloped by the flooding that washed across the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain over the past week, the abbey is once again hoping for help from yonder. On March 11 at around 7 p.m., water from the nearby Bogue Falaya River began to rise rapidly and inundated the campus in St. Benedict. Almost every building took in 24 to 36 inches of water -- except for the vaunted church.
The Rev. Gregory Boquet, president and rector of St. Joseph Seminary College, said campus cleanup alone is estimated at $3 million. The abbey has no flood insurance.
"We're going to do it," Boquet said of the cleanup, which has been described as a monumental undertaking. "It will be done as quickly and safely as possible. Anyone who can help, we'd be very glad to hear from you."
Bouquet is hoping FEMA will cover most of the recovery costs. But even with 75 percent federal funding, the abbey would still face about $750,000 in expenses. Then there is the cost of restoration, which has not been determined. A fund to help defray the cost has been set up at www.helptheabbey.com.
Worse than 1927
The abbey's 125-year history is a testament to the ups and downs of the monastic way of life. In 1889, the religious pioneers from Indiana settled on a 2,020-acre tract near Ponchatoula, where they planted the seed for St. Joseph Abbey. Hardship quickly ensued as the settlers found the land was unworkable for agriculture. To make matters worse, the property included large areas of wetlands that bred disease-carrying mosquitoes.
In 1901, they decided to move to the current property, part of which is about 100 yards from the Bogue Falaya River. But having rebuilt after the devastating fire, the abbey once again faced disaster in the great Mississippi River Valley flood of 1927. Described as the most destructive river flood in the history of the U.S., the rising water killed 246 people in seven states. The abbey property had fewer buildings at the time, yet most of them were inundated.
But the flood of March 2016 was worse, abbey officials said. A faint water line from the 1927 deluge remains visible on the side of the abbey's rectory. Next to it, abbey officials placed a piece of red tape to mark last week's flood. The red tape is two inches higher than the old mark.
Now the entire campus is closed. Its 138 seminarians -- the largest enrollment in recent history -- were sent home. About 30 monks who call the abbey home also were displaced. The church and the retreat house are closed, and all Holy Week activities have been cancelled.
St. Joseph's Woodworks, which makes and sells caskets to the public to raise money for the abbey, was knocked out of operation, at least temporarily. Deacon Mark Coudrain, who runs the casket operation and is director of abbey's Christian Life Center, said the woodworking shop contains about $200,000 worth of equipment. He and others on Wednesday were trying to dry the equipment in hopes that most of it will still work.
About 20 inches of water made it into the shop. Several wooden caskets were destroyed. One of them was turned over this week to Audubon Zoo for its swamp exhibit, Coudrain said.
A bee-keeping operation based at the abbey to produce honey also suffered a blow. Beekeeper Jeff Horchoff, who bottles and sells the honey in the campus gift shop and donates proceeds to the abbey, said about 300,000 bees drowned in the flood. Of the 18 hives that were producing honey, only three survived. This spring's honey harvest is not expected to yield much product.
So in addition to its better-known commodity - caskets – the abbey may soon make a name for itself as a source of honey, which it began selling in August.
The abbey also runs a bakery that produces 2,000 loaves of bread a week for poor and homeless people. It, too, was knocked out of operation.
The retreat center, which hosts about 3,000 guests each year, also is closed. All retreats have been cancelled for the foreseeable future.
The acclaimed abbey church, a Romanesque-style structure that is on the National Register of Historic Places, is one of the few buildings that didn't get water. However, the basement, where electrical and air conditioning systems are located, flooded. That leaves the church without power.
Abbey officials are a bit concerned about the opulent paintings on the interior walls of the church. In 2014, two painting conservators from South Carolina were brought in with the delicate task of restoring Dutch monk Gregory De Wit's elaborate artwork, which has adorned the walls and ceilings for six decades. De Wit spent 10 years on the art project at the abbey, finishing around 1950.
Experts think humidity exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina, which knocked out electrical power for an extended period, caused salt to crystalize and leach through the plaster walls of the church. The result was a dimming of original artwork that is an important part of the abbey's storied history.
To prevent a recurrence, dozens of fans and large blowers have been brought into the church to ward off dampness. The abbey has no timetable for when public Masses will resume at the church, which was dedicated in 1931.
Lots of fans
The church is not the only building with fans. Hundreds of blue fans, along with thick, air-blowing yellow tubes, can be found in every building on campus as workers try to dry out buildings.
In the campus library, thousands of books have been pulled from shelves in an effort to combat mold. An army of workers was scurrying through the library Wednesday afternoon, weaving through the tubing and other restoration equipment.
Dormitories, the rectory and classroom buildings throughout the campus have taken on the same look. A dormitory dedicated in 2014 is among the damaged buildings.
Abbey communications manager James Shields said he does not think any irreplaceable religious artifacts were lost to the flood, and that most of the damage is repairable. But the damage is extensive, the cleanup effort daunting.
Unlike flooding in other parts of St. Tammany Parish, the water that washed onto the abbey property came and left quickly. Coudrain, who stayed on the campus throughout the event, said water rose quickly Friday night but had subsided by Saturday morning. As a result, buildings and equipment got wet but did not soak for long.
Seminarians were not able to leave campus once water started rising; they moved to the second floor of the dormitory. Once the water went down, they were allowed to leave campus. Abbey officials hope to resume classed Monday, if electricity is restored.
Despite the damage inflicted by flood, Bouquet said, the abbey will carry on its mission. "We will continue our very long tradition of educating young men for the priesthood and praying for the needs of the world."
Benedictine Abbot Justin Brown, the leader of the monastic community, told the Clarion Herald that while the abbey struggles to regain its footing, its leadership realizes that many people in the community are in an even worse situation because of flooding of their homes. He said prayers are being offered for all to recover and gain strength from these difficult times.
"The Benedictine monks have been around for 1,500 years as an order. We have learned to stand firm and keep the faith."
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