Pastor struggles to salvage church hit by tanker truck
The pastor of a church damaged by a runaway truck tries to keep his flock from scattering.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published October 17, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - When a runaway tanker truck slams into your church, prayer alone won't put things right.
Still, the Rev. Troy Jones says, it would have been nice if someone - anyone - in the city's religious community had offered a word of sympathy or prayer in the nearly two months since a big tanker, its brakes failing, steamed down Interstate 275 at 22nd Avenue S, flew across six lanes and slammed into his tiny Church of God of St. Petersburg.
Jones, 32, said he has been struggling to keep his congregation together, visiting members and holding services in their homes. Today at 11 a.m., members of his church will worship in temporary quarters at the Frank W. Pierce Recreation Center, 2000 Seventh St. S.
Only one outsider has called since the Aug. 31 accident, Jones said.
"No others in this city have said, "We'll be praying for you.' I feel very much like a lone ranger. We're very much in need of a place to worship."
Truck driver Jimmie Craig of St. Petersburg says he also is going through hard times.
"I'm about to lose everything I got," Craig said during a telephone interview Friday.
Craig, a truck driver for 27 years, said he has been unable to return to work since the accident in which he suffered a broken nose and cracked knee. He also had to get eight stitches above his eye, he said. Craig, 48, added that his family is trying to get by on his wife's salary from Danka.
Records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles indicate that Craig has a long list of traffic violations, including driving with a suspended license, speeding and careless driving.
Thursday morning, weeks after the accident, the smell of what appeared to be gasoline lingered in the church at 3300 22nd Ave. S. Plywood covered a gaping hole. Pews and carpeting had been removed and debris cleared. A pool of water covered the floor, while above, a section of the roof had given way.
The destruction occurred during a Tuesday afternoon rush hour. No one was inside at the time.
Craig, an employee of A-1 Transport in Tampa, told authorities his brakes had failed.
"My main objective was not to turn the tanker over and preserve as many lives as I can and try not to hit anyone at all. I had no other choice but to put it into the church. My plan was that the church would stop the truck," said Craig.
"I knew better than to turn the tanker hard, because it would have caused a rollover and everybody would have been dead over there."
Jones said the accident has been a setback for his church, which draws its 75 to 100 members from as far away as Miami, Clearwater and Tampa.
"I've been trying to keep the congregation from scattering," said the former computer network engineer who came to the independent church two years ago. "We had a mortgage on the place and we still do and the bank still wants their money. It's pretty hard for us to rent."
A-I Transport's insurance company has offered about $60,000 for repairs, Jones said. Contractors, however, have indicated it will cost more than twice that to salvage the church on the edge of the small, modest neighborhood sandwiched between I-275 and 34th Street S, the pastor said. Katrina D. Lacy, the congregation's attorney, remembers growing up in the community when the church building was a Quickie store. These days practically the only way to get to the building is through an alley behind a KFC restaurant.
Jones said that even if the church is repaired, many members of the congregation are too afraid to return to a building now considered a bull's-eye for another accident.
"I would be fine with it, but the average person would think twice about it," agreed Gary Gray, a church member for eight years and a trustee.
Jones said he wants A-I Transport's insurance company to pay for the church to get a new building. Company officials did not return a call Friday.
In the weeks since the accident, the Florida Department of Transportation installed a guard rail along the portion of 22nd Avenue S in front of the church. The rail was installed after Jackie Lang, owner of the Imagination Station Day Care next door to the church, contacted the department. Lang said her day care had planned to use the sanctuary for an open house half an hour before the accident.
"We always had been concerned about that exit," she said.
Jones remembers arriving at his church after the accident.
"I saw a gas tanker sitting in the church. I saw a crowd of people and I was just thanking God that no one got hurt. I had just left there," he said.
Apparently not wanting to miss a chance to win a soul for Christ, Jones' mother, Deborah, issued an invitation to the truck driver through his wife.
"She said they wanted to meet me and wanted me to come to one of their services," Craig said.
"So you see," Jones said, "they landed in the right place."
Times researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report.
