Thunderstorms leave St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church with significant water damage

St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert suffered dramatic water damage from the thunderstorm that struck the city over the weekend.

In a news release sent by Rev. Andrew Butler, Rector of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, he stated, "A significant amount of rain fell in a short amount of time yesterday afternoon with runoff significantly damaging several areas of our church."

The affected areas included the upper and lower levels, as the church campus sits on the Highway 74 slope. The water flowed into the church because of this and forced the runoff into the church's windows and doors.

Their chapel, modeled after the St. Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh, Scotland, got completely flooded, requiring everything to be taken out. This included the pews, carpeting, padding, and general meeting spaces.

"The short amount of time — that was what was most surprising. This all happened in a forty-minute period," said Chet Hecht, the director of outreach and community engagement at St. Margaret's.

"I was at home, dealing with the storm myself, and I understood that water was pouring into the sanctuary, so I came up, and we were completely flooded. It was like a lake out here."

The downstairs level was damaged significantly more than the upstairs level.

Describing the scene, Hecht continued, "The water pushed over the patios, filled the downstairs patios, then flooded from two sides of the building."

The church's Neighbors-4-Neighbors program room was the only space that was mostly unaffected.

The immediate short-term solution was collecting and stacking up sandbags for future storms, as the valley heads into monsoon season.

There is reportedly no estimate of damage costs to the church for the time being, but both levels are busy drying up.

"We're hopeful that we'll be able to use the sanctuary," said Sr. Warden George Lynch. "If not, we have Karns Hall, which was the original sanctuary for St. Margaret's."

Sunday services will not be held this Sunday, July 21, but will resume on Sunday, July 28 in the main sanctuary. Wednesday Chapel is on hold until during renovations.

"We want to extend our gratitude to the fire department and to emergency services who came out and worked diligently and quickly to stop what could've been a far worse disaster," Lynch thanked.

St. Margaret's will update their congregation on the chapel and its restoration via the "Saint Mail" newsletter on Friday.