A pair of winter storms hitting parts of Texas between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day left many holiday travelers in dire straits.
Hotels filled quickly, and, often, churches came to the rescue of travelers stranded along treacherous roads.
Early Dec. 26, the American Red Cross alerted Eddie Tubbs, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dumas, Texas, that the snow, sleet and a thin glaze of ice was making holiday travel increasingly dangerous.
Tubbs said the church began preparations for the care and feeding of stranded motorists soon after lunch. “By 4 p.m., the activities center of the church was prepared to house an estimated 50 to 75 people,” he said. “By 5:30, the weather had become even more serious. “Then, all of the highways leaving Dumas were closed and being stranded became a cold reality.”
A call at suppertime reported 75 people were at the church’s activities center. Tubbs started toward the church, and by the time he arrived the number had grown to 150.
By 6 p.m., First Baptist opened its 900-seat worship center to accommodate the growing crowd. All told, the church provided shelter for more than 600 travelers. Three other shelters in Dumas were opened as well.
Local restaurants, grocery stores and merchants pitched in, giving services and goods at reduced prices or without cost. School buses carried motorists to the Dumas High School athletic center so people could take hot showers.
Tubbs said the travelers kept asking the workers, “Why are you doing this?”
“Probably the best response was given by a church member who simply answered, ‘Because of Christ,’” Tubbs said.
Ron Fox in Vernon, Texas, received a call about 11 Christmas night. “A policeman called to ask if we could help an older couple and their grown daughter who had no place to stay. The motels were all full, and the roads were too bad to continue their trip,” said Fox, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.
Fox agreed to open the Family Life Center, and by 3 a.m. Dec. 26, the church housed 136 stranded motorists.
“We put them in the Family Life Center and in the sanctuary,” he said, adding that while the church had a few blankets, “most of the travelers were on ski trips and had sleeping bags.”
The church was able to feed the motorists from food stocks on hand. “We keep sausage and gravy in the freezer, and my son (David, the associate pastor) is a pretty good cook and made biscuits from scratch.”
One family of 12 from Alexandria, La., was on the way to Colorado to ski when they were stranded. “They are good Pentecostal people,” Fox said, adding that after one night at the church, the family was able to obtain hotel rooms. They stayed an extra night in Vernon until the roads cleared. “They came back to the church Tuesday and fixed some authentic Cajun food for the church staff.”
Across town, at First Baptist Church, pastor Robert Prince opened the facilities to motorists after a motel desk clerk — a church member — called asking for help in finding places for the stranded motorists.
“It was so slick on the roads that the people weren’t even able to park straight in our parking lot. The cars were just every which way,” Prince said. The church played host to about 70 travelers, allowing them to bed down with
blankets, pillows and sleeping bags in educational space and the Family Life Center.
“Normally we would have had a lot of food on hand, but it was a holiday weekend and our cupboard was nearly bare. Fortunately, the grocery store in town opened at 7 a.m., and we were able to get coffee, muffins, doughnuts, cereal, fruit and milk.”
Prince said he talked with one young boy in the church’s gym, who said he was glad he had been stranded at the church rather than the motel because he could shoot baskets.
In Belleview, Texas, a youth group from a Methodist church became stranded at a truck stop. The proprietor called Tom Dobbs, pastor of First Baptist Church, to see if he could help.
Meanwhile, the Texas Baptist Men missions organization dispatched four disaster-relief mobile units to provide Northeast Texas residents with both much needed water and hot meals.
The Red Cross classified the ice storm — which extended into southern Oklahoma, southwestern Arkansas and northwestern Louisiana — as a level four disaster on a scale of one to five.
The East Texas Disaster Relief Mobile Unit from Gregg Baptist Association was activated on Dec. 28. Volunteers set up emergency food service at Wake Village First Baptist Church on the outskirts of Texarkana.
The Tarrant Baptist Association mobile unit set up at Texarkana’s Southwest Community Center. The Smith County Baptist Association mobile unit set up its field kitchen at the Community Center in nearby New Boston, and the Wichita-Archer-Clay Baptist Association mobile unit set up at First Baptist Church in Clarksville.
In their first week, 28 Texas Baptist Men Disaster Relief volunteers and local church volunteers worked from the four regional disaster relief units to serve some 15,000 meals.
“There are still a lot of roads that we haven’t been able to get down yet, so I expect the numbers to go up,” said Mel Goodwin of Kilgore, on-site coordinator for the multi-unit disaster relief response. (ABP)
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