Tragedy at Toccoa

The Cherokee Indians had a word to describe the stream-laced mountains and hills of pine and laurel in the northeast corner of Georgia. Toccoa, they called it—beautiful. One stream was especially beautiful. Flowing in a northeasterly direction, it splashed over rocks and down mountain sides to a rocky ledge overlooking a peaceful valley, then cascaded over the ledge to a gorge 186 feet below, and finally meandered out into a flood plain, moving ever downward to the river and the sea.

Educator Richard A. Forrest came to this valley in 1907 and built a Bible school. He named it after the falls: Toccoa Falls. Thirty-five years later industrialist-evangelist R. G. LeTourneau built an earthen embankment across the stream about half a mile above the falls. He built it atop a little dam someone else had built about the turn of the century. The dam and the resulting 35-foot-deep lake was to provide the campus with water and power.

The school gradually grew, it became a college (affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance), and many of its graduates went out from the valley to proclaim the Gospel in the far reaches of the earth.

Fifteen years ago the college plugged into other sources for its water and electricity, and the eighty-acre lake—named Kelley Barnes, after a much-loved patriarch of the school—was devoted to recreational use. There was never any trouble with the dam; no one paid it much heed.

The stream was not much wider than twenty feet or so and not very deep, and it seldom left its banks in times of heavy rain (it did last year, causing $100,000 worth of damage). Campus roads and bridges criss-crossed the stream. Houses and other structures were built on its banks, a trailer village was created on the flood plain downstream, and finally a four-story brick dormitory—Forrest Hall—was constructed on the northwest bank just a few hundred feet from the falls.

Last month, on the night of November 5, it rained steadily, as it had for two days. The power went off for four hours, then came back on at 11 P.M.

By midnight, most of the campus’s 600 residents (425 of them students) had gone to sleep. But not campus maintenance man Eldon Ellsberry or campus volunteer firemen Bill Ehrensberger, 28, and David Fledderjohann, 30. They were out keeping an eye on Toccoa Creek, swollen from the rain runoff. They alerted a few residents of Trailer Village about conditions, but the rain slacked off, and it appeared that no one would have to be rousted from bed after all.

The three were preparing to leave about 1:30 A.M. when they heard a roar coming from upstream. Suddenly they were in ankle-deep water. Apparently aware of what had happened, they made a dash for their jeep, hoping to get across the bridge and turn on a siren to awaken everybody. But a waist-high wave hit them, and then another swept over them, dumping them out of the jeep and washing them downstream. Ellsberry, pummeled by water-borne boulders, tree limbs, and other debris, finally was able to grab a tree branch at the edge of the maelstrom and pull himself to safety. Ehrensberger and Fledderjohann both perished. On the opposite bank Ehrensberger’s house was smashed apart; his wife and three of their four children were killed.

Ellsberry watched helplessly as trailer resident Ronald Ginther, a student, tried in vain to save his family. Ginther tossed his son on the roof of their trailer, but “the wave came along and took him off,” said Ellsberry. Ginther’s 26-year-old wife and three daughters also drowned.

When the dam broke, a thirty-foot wall of water crashed over the falls and through the gorge, churning up mud, ripping loose boulders that weighed tons, and uprooting giant oaks that had stood for centuries. The water slammed into the first floor of Forrest Hall, breaking the windows. There were screams as the sixteen male students on that floor tried to get out. Three did not. Within seconds the water had reached the ceiling. Fortunately, the building stood firm. There were scores of students on the upper floors.

Directly across the stream from Forrest Hall, the home of David Eby, dean of men, was torn from its foundations, and the torrent swirled through the house. The Eby family got wet and frightened, but they survived.

The flood made splinters of several nearby campus buildings that were vacant; the main college buildings and other dormitories were on high ground and therefore escaped damage. As the wall of water moved downstream, it demolished seven residences, devastated Trailer Village (of twenty-five trailers, all but one were destroyed or damaged), flattened dozens of vehicles, and swept through the college’s garage and warehouse. A big intercity-type bus was deposited on its side a half-mile away. Debris piled up against a highway bridge further downstream, creating a dam-like effect that dissipated the flood and prevented heavy losses in a more heavily populated area below the campus.

In thirty minutes it was over. Thirty-nine persons, including twenty children, were dead and dozens were injured. Among the dead were theology professors Edward Pepsney (also his wife and two children) and Jerry Sproull (also his three children). The body of elderly Paul Williams had not been found as of late last month. All of the victims were associated with the school directly or indirectly. Damage exceeded $2.5 million.

Help arrived quickly. Some students and staff personnel joined disaster workers in search and rescue operations. Many others congregated in prayer meetings in the pre-dawn darkness, then gathered for a worship and prayer service later in the morning.

Despite the tragedy, an air of optimism prevailed among the students. “Sure, I’ll miss my friends,” said one girl. “But I know they’re in heaven, and I’ll see them again someday.”

Some outsiders predicted that the campus would have to be closed for perhaps the rest of the school year. President Kenneth Opperman arrived from Florida, where he had conducted the funeral service of a coed killed in a traffic accident. “This is not the end of Toccoa Falls College,” he told the students. “It may be a new beginning.” He announced that the campus would close for nine days but would open with a full schedule of classes on November 15. The announcement was greeted with applause: it was clear that the students shared his determination to go on.

A Baptist conference center and members of Toccoa’s churches offered to provide lodging to the displaced and to students not going home for the break. Money, goods, and relief supplies poured in from the surrounding community. The World Relief Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals sent a $50,000 check, the Billy Graham organization sent $25,000, and there were other donations (the total had reached $200,000 before Thanksgiving Day).

President Carter’s wife Rosalynn and Georgia governor George Busbee toured the campus and offered encouragement. The President declared the campus a federal disaster area, qualifying it for special aid. The Vatican sent a telegram of support.

Reporters who visited the campus immediately after the disaster said that they were impressed by the calm outlook and deportment of the survivors. They listened carefully as administrators, teachers, and students alike answered the most-asked question: “Why did God allow it to happen to a Christian school?” The replies stressed that it rains on the just and unjust alike, that God never promised to keep Christians from experiencing hardship, that God has a transcendent plan, and that the universe operates according to physical laws set in motion by God.

Some 1,500 persons attended a memorial service when the school reopened. In his sermon, Opperman emphasized that life goes on and that the job of world evangelism remains to be done.

Students say the tragedy has resulted in greater unity, a measure of spiritual renewal, and a sense of seriousness about the future. It has also had other results. At least eighteen persons are known to have professed faith in Christ. They include an ABC television cameraman; a local-area newspaper reporter, and several relatives of victims.

Another result is the increased state and federal attention that will be given to the thousands of private dams like the one that burst on Toccoa Creek. A congressman calls them “loaded shotguns pointed at the people downstream.” Many have not been subjected to a program of regular inspections by experts.

The authorities may never know for sure why the Toccoa dam burst. There is disputed evidence that water had been seeping through the earthen wall in recent months. Building a dam on top of an old one presents hazards, say engineers, and they should not contain timbers, for wood will rot and weaken in time (the Toccoa dam contained timbers).

Whatever, the dam probably will not be rebuilt.

Meanwhile, it will take some time for the valley to heal itself of its terrible wounds.

Flynt’s Odyssey

Charles Colson. Eldridge Cleaver. And now Larry Flynt.

Flynt, the controversial publisher of Hustler, a magazine that features nudity and sex, was a surprise platform guest at the Sunday morning worship service at Braeswood Assembly of God Church in Houston on November 20. He told the audience of 1,900 that God had convicted him of sin and that he had at last become a follower of Christ.

The surprise appearance was a last-minute one. Evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton had been signed up months earlier to speak at the special pre-Thanksgiving service. Between press interviews an hour before the service began, Mrs. Stapleton told Braeswood’s pastor, Earl Banning, that Flynt had called her Friday night from San Antonio and told her he had become a Christian. Moreover, said she, Flynt was that very morning in a Houston hotel (it was the final day of the big international women’s conference in town). Banning and Mrs. Stapleton talked about it some more, then decided to telephone Flynt and invite him to share his story with the congregation. The millionaire publisher arrived within thirty minutes, Banning recalls.

“I feel I owe every woman in America a personal apology for Hustler magazine,” he remarked to the congregation during a twenty-minute testimony. He announced plans to change Hustler “from raunchy sex to healthy sex” and to feature articles on religion and other upbeat topics. He credited his conversion in part to Mrs. Stapleton and her husband Bob. The Stapletons and the Flynts had exchanged visits over a period of several months, and on these occasions Mrs. Stapleton offered spiritual counsel.

Flynt asked permission to conclude his talk with a prayer. “God, if you can save a man like me and love me, surely you can love anybody.…” he began. It was his first public prayer ever, he said, and it was probably only the second time he’d been in church. When he finished, the audience broke into applause.

Over lunch, Banning and the Stapletons discussed Flynt’s profession of faith with him further. Afterward, in an interview, Banning said: “It is my opinion that he’s serious and is not playing games.”

Later in the day, Flynt and his wife Althea traveled with the Stapletons to San Antonio, where Mrs. Stapleton was scheduled to speak that night at the Church of Castle Hills, an independent Pentecostal church. Here again Flynt gave his testimony.

Afterward, he repeated to reporters his plans to change Hustler. “We won’t be discriminating toward women,” he said. “If we deal with sex, it’ll be promoting a healthy attitude toward sex rather than a perverted one.” The magazine will still have controversy though, he affirmed. He added that Hustler “isn’t a cause, only a symptom.” The 15 million readers, he said, “are reflective of the problems of society, and most of them really need help.”

Flynt has been convicted of obscenity charges in Ohio (they do not involve sex or nudity), and he faces legal hassles elsewhere. He told his new Christian friends that he had instructed his attorneys not to call any witness except himself in the appeal of the Ohio case; he said he will simply tell the court of his decision to follow Christ and how it has changed his outlook.

The publisher points to several influences for good in his spiritual odyssey; the friendship of the Stapletons and of Baptist evangelist Bob Harrington, a chance meeting with two evangelists while he was in San Antonio to testify before a state legislative committee on child pornography, and a research project to determine what the Bible teaches about sex.

The evangelists in San Antonio were Ed Human, a Southern Baptist formerly associated with street evangelist Arthur Blessitt, and Evelyn Linton. Mrs. Linton and her husband Guy ran a strip joint known as the Green Gate before they professed Christ a few years ago through the ministry of Harrington. Since then, the Lintons and Human have worked closely together in some outreach projects.

Human, an ardent morality-in-media crusader, bumped into Flynt at the hearing and said he wanted to share the love of Christ with him. Flynt invited Human and Mrs. Linton, along with a local reporter, to his hotel room, where they talked and prayed for more than four hours. The pair also visited with Flynt the next day—the Friday before his church appearance in Houston. “If I’m right in what I am doing [publishing Hustler and pushing for more permissiveness], America is in a whale of a mess,” Flynt told Human. “But if I’m wrong, I want to know.” Human prayed on the spot that God would show Flynt what was right.

Flynt had already been shown a short time earlier. In preparing his court case, he assigned researchers to find out what the Bible teaches about sex. Upon reading their report, he said, he found out that everything he was doing in Hustler was wrong.

Here’s Life, World

Founder-president Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ last month announced the launching of a campaign to raise $1 billion by 1982 to finance what Crusade bills as “the most extensive Christian social and evangelization mission in recorded history.” He made the announcement at a press conference in Washington, D.C., with telephone hookups to simultaneous press gatherings in New York and Los Angeles. A panel of business leaders and entertainers joined Bright for the conference. They included: Wallace E. Johnson of Memphis, cofounder of the Holiday Inn motel chain: Nelson Bunker Hunt, a Dallas oilman and financier (and son of the late H. L. Hunt, the famed late oilman who championed many conservative political causes); and movie star Roy Rogers and his wife Dale Evans.

Johnson is the international chairman and Hunt is chairman of the international executive committee.

The initial phase of the campaign has been launched with a goal of $100 million, with some $30 million in pledges already collected, according to the panelists.

The outreach part of the program, “Here’s Life,” will be patterned after the recent “Here’s Life, America” effort and similar campaigns that Crusade has been conducting in other countries in the past year or so. The idea, said Bright, is to field a force of Christian workers who will “unite with churches and other Christian organizations to help fulfill the Great Commission in our time.” Modern communications technology will be employed to try to reach every person in the world with the Gospel message “at least once,” said Bright. Laypersons will be recruited to work at their own vocations in foreign countries to “demonstrate Christian love in action” and to assist national churches in evangelism and social-action projects, he added.

Several task forces are being lined up to service the effort. One will study the problems of new technologies needed to reach many otherwise inaccessible areas, according to a Crusade press statement. Another is expected to produce hundreds of hours of domestic and multi-lingual films and television programs. New York producer John Heyman of the Genesis Project (The New Media Bible) has been named to direct this task force, said Bright. Another group will aim its witness at the world’s political leaders, he indicated, but a chairman had not yet been selected.

Included in a press kit handed out at the Washington conference was an audited financial statement covering Campus Crusade’s 1976 and 1977 finances. Its income for the fiscal year ending last June shows total income at $41.6 million (including $32.5 million in contributions), an increase of $7.5 million over the preceding year. Expenses were tabulated at $40.3 million and $32.2 million respectively. These amounts include neither certain funds raised overseas for local work nor Here’s Life, America projects, which are set up under separate corporations, according to the statement.

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