Angela MacMahon had less than 10 minutes to get to safety April 24.
MacMahon, an Albertville resident and single mom, had just arrived home from work and turned on the television when she heard the warning.
“It was like a sheet was put over the window,” MacMahon said. “I heard the rumbling — like they say it sounds like a freight train — and all I could think of was the glass from the window.
“I jumped into a closet; I was scared to death,” she said.
But thankfully, once the tornado had passed through, MacMahon found herself alive and unharmed. She was equally thankful that her two children had spent the night with a baby sitter and were not home when it hit.
Her property, however, was not as lucky.
In MacMahon’s back yard, a pine tree fell across and destroyed the 16-foot above-ground pool she had bought her children a few weeks prior, and in her front yard, an old oak tree was uprooted and fell onto her roof.
Overwhelmed by the damage and not knowing what to do, MacMahon turned to a friend, who then turned to an Alabama Baptist disaster relief crew working nearby and took them to MacMahon.
“They said, ‘We will help you,’” MacMahon explained. “I thought between the insurance company and all of the other people who needed help that it’d be later in the week or month. They were here the next morning … at 6 o’clock.”
Disaster relief workers moved the tree off MacMahon’s roof, covered holes in the roof with tarps and cleaned up the fallen trees in the back yard.
“It was like bees to honey,” MacMahon said. “They swarmed in with their yellow hats and shirts and started cleaning.”
Disaster relief volunteers, wearing their trademark yellow shirts and hats, were some of the first responders to the storm-wrecked area.
Randall Stoner, director of missions for Marshall Baptist Association, described how quickly they responded:
• April 24, 10:24 p.m. — storm hit.
• April 25, 2:30 a.m. — Mel Johnson, state disaster relief strategist for Alabama Baptists, called Stoner.
• 6:30 a.m. — Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), called Stoner.
• 8:30 a.m. — disaster relief teams from five Baptist associations had arrived in Albertville ready for work.
“It’s just a blessing to see how fast our brothers and sisters in Christ respond to the need of our churches, our people, our town,” Stoner said. “They beat all the other organizations here. … It’s just a miracle to me and a blessing to me … how fast the yellow caps showed up.”
Chain saw, cleanup, recovery, feeding and chaplaincy crews were deployed to Albertville in Marshall County and Geraldine in DeKalb County — the two hardest hit areas by what the National Weather Service identified as an EF-3 tornado. Teams were also deployed to Parrish and Cordova in Walker County.
As of April 29, there had been 228 trained disaster relief volunteers involved; 70 chain saw jobs completed; 10,788 meals served; and nine salvation decisions recorded in Walker, Marshall and DeKalb counties.
“They’ve done great,” Ron Warren, state disaster relief cleanup, recovery and chain saw coordinator, said of the volunteers. “They’re going out in (poor) conditions, fighting their way into places with debris … and they’re helping people.”
Working alongside disaster relief volunteers have been the churches in the affected areas.
First Baptist Church, Geraldine, made its building available to the community as a shelter and the Red Cross and the state disaster relief teams as a headquarters for work in its town.
“We participated in the GPS: Across Alabama evangelism … and we are currently doing the follow-up,” Pastor Kirk Griggs said. “We already had signs up that said ‘Find It Here’ (the GPS catchphrase). Then this disaster hit and this community has been able to find it here.”
First Baptist Church, Albertville, also became a disaster relief headquarters for Alabama Baptists serving in its town, hosting feeding and chain saw crews for much of the week following the storm. On April 29, the disaster relief headquarters was moved to Mount Calvary Baptist Church, Albertville, which also housed the Red Cross.
Lifepoint Baptist Church, Albertville, has led efforts in feeding the primarily Hispanic residents of Westgate Trailer Park in Albertville, while Cowboy Church, Albertville, with the help of First Baptist Church, Boaz, had fed approximately 750 meals a day to other Albertville residents at press time, according to Stoner.
“The ministry has impacted both [Geraldine and Albertville] in a significant way,” Johnson said. “It’s a community of our Baptist family (working together), and they have turned out in numbers and have made a huge impression.”
Pleasantfield Baptist Church, Parrish, has been assisting with cleanup efforts in its area, removing trees and covering and repairing roofs.
But as Baptists continue cleaning up their towns, some will be focusing on repairing their church buildings:
• Solid Rock Baptist Church, Albertville, will have much to repair after a tornado came through its sanctuary, entering a window and blowing off the sanctuary doors. It exited above the baptistry, leaving a gaping hole. The church also had damage to its nursery and front porch.
• Liberty Baptist Church, Crossville, had major structural damage to its main sanctuary building that will most likely result in a total loss.
• First, Albertville, lost its vans and buses to a fallen pine tree and had damage to its parking lot.
To give to disaster relief work in Alabama, send donations to the SBOM, Attn: Accounting Services, P.O. Box 11870, Montgomery, AL 36111-0870. Mark the check “For Disaster Relief.”
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