Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief teams are hard at work in Selmer, Tennessee, and in Alabama’s Colbert and Lauderdale counties following a devastating set of storms that moved across the Midwest and the South in the past week.
In Selmer, an EF-3 tornado killed five area residents and destroyed whole neighborhoods on April 3, according to David Hendon, the white hat leader on site for ABDR.
“It was just really, really bad,” he said.
But Hendon is thankful the number isn’t higher. He said he’s already talked with several area homeowners who have amazing stories of how they were saved in the storm.
“One man and his wife and dog were hunkered down, and the house just blew away around them and sucked their dog away from them,” he said. “His wife had to have a few stitches, and he didn’t have a scratch. He attributes living through that to God — he says God protected them.”
Hendon said three Alabama teams — Limestone, Tennessee River and Walker Baptist associations — are on site doing cleanup and recovery work today (April 7), and he expects a team from North Jefferson Baptist Association to join them tomorrow.
“They’re out cutting trees and trying to help get things back to normal,” Hendon said. “It’s going to take a long time.”
Volunteers at work in Colbert and Lauderdale counties
A team from Colbert-Lauderdale Baptist Association has also been out today cutting trees in Sheffield and Muscle Shoals following storms that came through April 5.
Forrest Wright, who leads the Colbert-Lauderdale disaster relief team, said damage there is sporadic, unlike Selmer where it’s widespread. At least three EF-1 tornadoes were confirmed in the area, according to Huntsville’s WHNT News 19.
“There wasn’t a lot of house damage,” Wright said, noting that he thought they would probably be working there for about a week.
For more information about Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief, visit sbdr.org.
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