I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Quite a statement coming from a man who about this time last year began months of cleanup and rebuilding work in the wake of a tornado that hit Rosalie.
But David Patty, director of missions for Sand Mountain Baptist Association, said this time, it’s different.
“It’s like hurricane damage you’d see along the coast,” he said. “It’s pretty bad.”
The Emergency Management Agency in his area estimated 200 homes were damaged when a tornado ripped through Macedonia, Powell and Sylvania on April 10.
“They’re tore up pretty bad there,” Patty said.
But then the area was pounded again April 12, this time by straight line winds.
The damage is extensive. And ever since the initial storm, Sand Mountain Association disaster relief teams have barely put down their chain saws.
“We’ve been wearing these things out the last few days,” Patty said.
His teams cleared roads and then moved on to the Jackson County Park, where 92 RVs were damaged when “great big giant loblolly pines” toppled right over on them, he said.
“When one fell, it would knock out three campers,” Patty said. “It’s amazing nobody got killed — most of them had people in them.”
A half a mile or so away, a team from Tennessee River Baptist Association was cleaning up trees in a subdivision.
And all across the state, other Baptist disaster relief volunteers were doing the same thing.
Tuscaloosa and Shelby Baptist associations had chain-saw and cleanup teams responding to needs in their areas. Teams from Morgan, East Cullman, Calhoun, Etowah, St. Clair, Limestone and Marshall Baptist associations were also deployed in north Alabama, with several in Scottsboro, another hard-hit area.
According to Vernon Lee, the state’s disaster relief contact in the Sand Mountain area, “Volunteers are all over the place.”
That’s all part of the ministry, according to Tommy Puckett, state disaster relief director.
“Our disaster relief leadership responded in a timely fashion, both in the assessment and response to damages,” he said. “Our primary responsibility is to assist and bring hope to the community where the needs are most evident, be it from community leadership’s viewpoint as well as the victims themselves.”
Southern Baptist disaster relief volunteers across the Southeast responded to other areas of need in the wake of the storms, including Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Mena, Ark., which were hard hit by tornadoes that brought fatalities.
The same weather system also caused funnel clouds in Kentucky, and in northern Georgia, trees and power lines were downed as heavy rain, hail and winds ripped across the state. (BP contributed)
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