Alabama crews help Missouri after ice storms

The buzz of Alabama chain saws is joining the chorus of disaster relief teams helping residents in Missouri recover from the powerful winter storms that swept through the Midwest and claimed at least 90 lives in mid-January.
  
Alabama Baptist disaster relief crews have been present since Jan. 19, when assessment teams from Elmore and St. Clair Baptist associations arrived.
  
Chain saw crews arrived Jan. 22 and will continue serving in rotations as long as they are needed, said Jerry Butler, state coordinator for cleanup and recovery, mud-out and chain saw crews. Butler is pastor of South Sauty Baptist Church, Langston, in Marshall Baptist Association. 
  
Volunteers from St. Clair, Calhoun, Marshall, Morgan, Etowah, Limestone, Colbert-Lauderdale, Sand Mountain and Birmingham Baptist associations worked the week of Jan. 22, and teams from Tennessee River, Chilton, Elmore, Fayette, Walker, Baldwin and Mobile Baptist associations were scheduled to work the week of Jan. 29, said Tommy Puckett, director of disaster relief for the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions.
  
The chain saw crews have been working in Waynesville and the assessment teams have been in Nixa, Butler noted. The assessment crews will stay as long as they can.
  
In all, approximately 40 disaster relief recovery, chain saw, feeding and laundry units were mobilized to Missouri at press time, said Jim Burton, director of the disaster operations center at the North American Mission Board in Alpharetta, Ga. In addition to Alabama, these represent crews from state associations/conventions in Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Mississippi, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, Kentucky, Indiana, South Carolina and the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
  
Danny Decker, state disaster relief director for the Missouri Baptist Convention, called the recent ice storm a “level four” (out of five) disaster, and 20 counties along both sides of the Interstate 44 corridor in southwest Missouri have been declared national disaster areas by President Bush. The storm left 260,000 in Missouri without power.
  
In Missouri and Oklahoma, Southern Baptist units already have prepared more than 45,000 meals, completed more than 660 chain saw jobs and provided nearly 500 showers and laundry loads.
  
Oklahoma, where most of the storm-related deaths occurred, saw about 122,000 homes blacked out by the winter storm’s snow and ice. About 30 disaster relief teams had been dispatched there at press time, representing crews from the following state associations/conventions: Florida, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Mississippi, Utah-Idaho, Iowa, the Baptist General Convention of Texas and Southern Baptists of Texas Convention. (TAB, BP)