HARMONY — In times of crisis, look for people in the background helping. They are always there.

That was true of two women here 10 years ago.

Flooding inundated Harmony in September 2004, but two women in the background coordinated a relief effort that, 10 years later, is still earning them praise from their neighbors.

Sue Casker and Marilyn Weyman both attend the Grace Church of Harmony, which became a central command center in the relief effort in the months following the hurricane, the remnants of which dropped heavy rains in the area on Sept. 17, 2004.

Casker still gets emotional talking about those days and how people naturally congregated at the church, not because of a prayer service or the promise of comfort, but because it was one of the few places left untouched by the floods.

“There were so many people standing under the portico saying, 'We don't know what to do,'” Casker said as her voice wavered. “It was the high ground to come to in town. It was one of the only places left that was high and dry.”

The rains hit Thursday night and continued Friday and into Saturday. It wasn't until Sunday morning at church that Casker was approached by Weyman, who made it clear that something had to be done for the people in Harmony.

“So we showed up at the church office and from then on, our minds just went into full gear on helping those people,” Weyman said. “Church officials set up a room for us, gave us a telephone and we started coordinating.”

Casker reiterated that sentiment and said many of the church's members from Zelienople weren't affected by the floods, which made it easier for them to help those who were.

“We had this overwhelming feeling that we had to do something,” Casker said. “These are our neighbors; we're dry and they aren't. It was pretty obvious to us that we were in a position to really help out.”

And help out they did, in a big way.

The operation started in the church basement where volunteers began making three hot meals a day for anyone who came.

It wasn't long until the volunteers outgrew that room, as Casker said, and spilled supplies over into the youth center, which became a place to store clothes, cleaning supplies and other items.

Only several days into the relief efforts, Casker and Weyman had a dedicated staff of volunteers who would sort clothes, cook food and run errands for supplies, all with the church as the base of command.

“We put some people up in the youth center,” Casker said. “These people had no place to stay, live or sleep. They had no food, no clothes. Everything was just gone.”

Casker explained it wasn't some great organizational effort that gathered these people together.

“People would come to the church office and say one of two things,” she said. “They would say how they needed help or how they could help. And we would connect them either way.

“If they weren't touched by the flood, they felt so bad for their neighbors that they had to do something,” Casker said.

It was an exhausting several weeks, with both women putting in more about 15 hours of work per day. But they were helping people who were “dirty and fatigued,” Casker said, people with literally nowhere else to go.

“Did we get tired?” Weyman asked. “Of course we did. But the joy in serving those people took away our tiredness.”

The task of organizing was made easier by the open hearts of residents, both women said. Restaurants from as far away as Pittsburgh dropped off free meals for anyone in need, while other residents simply dropped off money at the church.

One farmer picked 100 ears of corn and dropped them off at the church for free.

Other residents would take bundles of dirty clothes home with them to wash, then return the clean clothes.

Weyman estimated that more than 1,000 gallons of bleach were given away as residents struggled against mold and other after-effects of the flood.

After about three weeks, fewer people were showing up for meals; fewer were using the church as a place to shower and sleep.

As the relief efforts wound down, neither woman had a chance to reflect. However, now 10 years later both of them looked back and could remember seeing smiles coming back to the faces of those affected.

“You started to see people gradually evolve from a point of helplessness to feeling more like themselves again,” Casker said. “They got their life back, little by little. It was so wonderful to see that.”

Some of the flood-affected residents left the church and never came back. Others decided to join the church as members after seeing the love and compassion given after the floods.

Still others remained as friends to both Casker and Weyman, friends who gathered a year after the event for a dinner together, a get-together they named “Survivin' Ivan.”

Both women downplay their roles in the relief effort. They did nothing more than offer a light in a dark place, offer a hot meal in the cold and offer a dry bed in the middle of a flooded town, they said.

“It was such a mess,” Casker said of Harmony. “And these people could come and have a hot meal and talk to their neighbors to figure out where to go to pick up the pieces. It was just a warm place to congregate. And I think that made a difference.”