Jackson Tennessee Tornadoes February 2008
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February 5, Super Tuesday, brought a super amount of tornadoes to the mid-west.
87 Tornadoes touched down and over 57 people died as a result of these storms.
This is the deadliest outbreak in the modern area since 1997.
Randy from our church, had just moved to Tennessee. On Wednesday morning, I
immediately called him to see if he had any info on what was actually going on in
the area. He put us in touch with the emergency management office of Jackson.
They asked that we come to help them with the relief efforts as soon as possible.
I went to church on Wednesday night and talked to Anthony, a young man who was
currently not working. I asked him what he was doing for the next couple of
weeks, he said nothing, so I asked him to join me.
I contacted Scott from Christian Contractors Association and he said he had plenty
of tarps and sticks for us to patch up roofs. We loaded up our things and headed to
Brooksville to get what Scott had for us. We drove through the night and arrived
around 3 AM on Thursday. We had set up in advance to stay at 1st Baptist of
Bemis and Mathew got out of bed and let us in.
What a blessing, heat (remember it's winter and we're from Florida), showers and
a kitchen!
We got a few hours of sleep and took off for the EOC. We met up with a few
difficulties at first, and weren't sure if we were where God wanted us or not.
received a call from the mayor's office apologizing for how we were treated and
received a call from the mayor's office apologizing for how we were treated and
asking us not to leave as they needed our help. We thanked God and said yes.
The mayor's assistant arranged for us to get meals locally and she met us for
dinner giving us an official Jackson, TN shirt from the mayor!
The next morning we met the correct people and helped them get set up with their
volunteer resource center. They had no liability paperwork for volunteers and
homeowners and no work order paperwork for homeowners. I offered ours to
them in Word format. They took them and changed the heading to reflect their
community and now use them!
We helped them run the VRC and took work teams out every day. A contractor
donated a Bobcat/track steer for us to use, which was a great tool to haul things to
the road.
We hooked up with a local CC guy, Sergio who used to pastor a CC in CA and had
just moved to TN. A Bartlett CC pastor, John, his son Daniel and the Memphis CC
pastor's son, Benjamin, who was in the Union University dorm when it was
destroyed, came up and joined us on Tuesday. The following day I noticed a young
guy hanging out at the VRC by himself. The county workers often came in for
coffee and donuts so I a Lynnette, the county liaison for us, if he was with them.
She said no so I went over and introduced myself.
Turns out that he was from Buffalo and had driven there to help people! I asked
where he was staying and he mentioned a flea bag hotel. I told him if he wanted to
work with us we could provide a place to stay and make sure he got fed. He agreed
and took off with us.
We had been contacted by Wes from CC Chestersprings, PA and Cassie from
Harvest Fellowship in Indianapolis. They both wanted to bring in teams to help out.
Wes agreed to come in the next weekend with a team of 18 and Cassie with a
smaller group the following weekend.
It was really cold for us, Anthony had never been out of FL before so he really
enjoyed the weather!!
We documented 17 homes that we worked on while there, but there were some that
we just joined up on. We passed out over 150 flyers to different homeowners
offering help and had left enough work for both teams that came in after us. We
continued to keep in contact with the city/county for long term recovery efforts,
but local ministries were able to step up and take care of the needs.
To read some of our newsletters while in the field click here and scroll to the
Tennessee Tornadoes Jackson Newsletters.
87 Tornadoes touched down and over 57 people died as a result of these storms.
This is the deadliest outbreak in the modern area since 1997.
Randy from our church, had just moved to Tennessee. On Wednesday morning, I
immediately called him to see if he had any info on what was actually going on in
the area. He put us in touch with the emergency management office of Jackson.
They asked that we come to help them with the relief efforts as soon as possible.
I went to church on Wednesday night and talked to Anthony, a young man who was
currently not working. I asked him what he was doing for the next couple of
weeks, he said nothing, so I asked him to join me.
I contacted Scott from Christian Contractors Association and he said he had plenty
of tarps and sticks for us to patch up roofs. We loaded up our things and headed to
Brooksville to get what Scott had for us. We drove through the night and arrived
around 3 AM on Thursday. We had set up in advance to stay at 1st Baptist of
Bemis and Mathew got out of bed and let us in.
What a blessing, heat (remember it's winter and we're from Florida), showers and
a kitchen!
We got a few hours of sleep and took off for the EOC. We met up with a few
difficulties at first, and weren't sure if we were where God wanted us or not.
received a call from the mayor's office apologizing for how we were treated and
received a call from the mayor's office apologizing for how we were treated and
asking us not to leave as they needed our help. We thanked God and said yes.
The mayor's assistant arranged for us to get meals locally and she met us for
dinner giving us an official Jackson, TN shirt from the mayor!
The next morning we met the correct people and helped them get set up with their
volunteer resource center. They had no liability paperwork for volunteers and
homeowners and no work order paperwork for homeowners. I offered ours to
them in Word format. They took them and changed the heading to reflect their
community and now use them!
We helped them run the VRC and took work teams out every day. A contractor
donated a Bobcat/track steer for us to use, which was a great tool to haul things to
the road.
We hooked up with a local CC guy, Sergio who used to pastor a CC in CA and had
just moved to TN. A Bartlett CC pastor, John, his son Daniel and the Memphis CC
pastor's son, Benjamin, who was in the Union University dorm when it was
destroyed, came up and joined us on Tuesday. The following day I noticed a young
guy hanging out at the VRC by himself. The county workers often came in for
coffee and donuts so I a Lynnette, the county liaison for us, if he was with them.
She said no so I went over and introduced myself.
Turns out that he was from Buffalo and had driven there to help people! I asked
where he was staying and he mentioned a flea bag hotel. I told him if he wanted to
work with us we could provide a place to stay and make sure he got fed. He agreed
and took off with us.
We had been contacted by Wes from CC Chestersprings, PA and Cassie from
Harvest Fellowship in Indianapolis. They both wanted to bring in teams to help out.
Wes agreed to come in the next weekend with a team of 18 and Cassie with a
smaller group the following weekend.
It was really cold for us, Anthony had never been out of FL before so he really
enjoyed the weather!!
We documented 17 homes that we worked on while there, but there were some that
we just joined up on. We passed out over 150 flyers to different homeowners
offering help and had left enough work for both teams that came in after us. We
continued to keep in contact with the city/county for long term recovery efforts,
but local ministries were able to step up and take care of the needs.
To read some of our newsletters while in the field click here and scroll to the
Tennessee Tornadoes Jackson Newsletters.
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the
darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. Isaiah 58:10
darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. Isaiah 58:10
