Tornado Relief in my home state: Alabama

As many know by now on April 27th, 2011, one of the largest tornadoes ever recorded hit Central and West Alabama (among many other places). Today I was with my church group trying to bring comfort to those who were mourning and help provide what relief we could with the tools that we had and the people that we had with us. I started off the afternoon by driving by a neighborhood that I helped Habitat for Humanity build about a year ago. I knew that the neighborhood was close to where the tornado hit, but I did not realize how close until this afternoon. The neighborhood is exactly 3 miles from where this massive storm hit. Yet, it looked untouched by the storm which to me is amazing. Anyway, words cannot describe the things we saw in Pleasant Grove, Alabama today, so I am going to try and let the pictures aid in telling the story.



This is a picture of a couple of the teams that are staying at the same church as the group I am with from my home church. We are just over 200 miles from home, but many of the other groups came for a lot farther and from many different states. I wanted this picture to let you know that Alabama is fortunate to have groups from other states come in to help with the relief effort. From a local Alabamaian thank you other states!







These three pictures show you just part of the devestation. It is really hard to get a full picture of all the devestation even being here it is hard to see it all because of the magnitude. I will share a couple of pictures that have story to go along with them.


As we were driving thru the area I kept thinking and discuss with a guy from my church that the only survivors from this horrific event had to be those that fled their homes. However, I met a very sweet, young couple, Loretta and Phil, that proved me wrong. Loretta told us about how they survived being in their house and that the rubble we were standing on used to be their house. She talked about how she and her dog were crouched down in their basement, and her husband was actually picked up by the tornado and thrown across the room! In the first picture below you see us sawing some of the wood with a chainsaw while Loretta is in the background telling Ed her story of survival.



We asked her how we could help her. She told us that she would really like to see if her guitar made it because she would like to keep it. So, we worked on removing part of the walls and roof and whatever else had collapsed and finally we found the guitar!








When she saw the case, she thought that maybe the guitar did not make it. But, I opened the case and saw that really the neck made it, the strings were all in tact, and a part of the body made it. Still Loretta seemed unconvinced that she should keep it. However, I tried to tune the guitar and show her that you could still play the guitar, just the sound would be different. Her husband said that he thought they should keep it too and if anything hang it up in their new place that they hope to get one day. I really hope she keeps it. Here is a better picture of it.




Below is another picture of what is left of their house. If you look in the distance you can see their deck that is still standing, and part of the brick from the front of the house. Again words and pictures cannot describe how bad it was.



When we were about to leave the area we were working in, a large group of offical looking cars pulled up to us. Out of the cars stepped people with cameras, FEMA, and a man who I recognized that was dressed rather nice to be there to help as a relief worker. The man approached me first and asked me if I lived there. I said, "NO, just trying to help those in need." Then I introduced myself. He then said, "I am Spencer Bachus". To which I responded, "You mean Congressman Spencer Bachus." He had kind of a shocked look on his face and said, "Yeah that is me, you are right." I then told him that I worked for a short time with my former congressman, Terry Everett. He said, "O well isn't it a small world." Then I proceeded to talk with the congressman and a couple of other people from my group came up and talked with him as well (interesting enough I told them later that he was a US Congressman and I think others were unaware that is who he was). Anyway here is a picture of him.



He informed me that earlier he had been in his work clothes, but had to change in order to goto a meeting during the early afternoon.

Thoughts from the day:

Hope is not dead in Pleasant Grove. Even amongst the saddest you could see in the eyes of the people, there was hope. We prayed with them and they talked about how they were glad to be alive. I told them I hate that we met on such a tragic circumstance, but that we had hope that they would recover. One lady came up to me and gave me a big hug saying to me, "God is so good." She was right. God is good. He works in ways that we don't understand and some lives are cut shorter than others. He may take away all our material possesions (as he did in many cases I have heard from this past week). Yet, he breathes new life into us and a new hope. I pray that tomorrow (later today actually) that we are able to give a new hope to the people of Pleasant Grove. Hope does not put us to shame (Romans 5:5) if we hope in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirt Given to us. Hope should be found in God our heavenly Father who created us and breated life in us, God the Son Jesus Christ our Savior who died on the cross for our sins and died to bring us to new life in Him, God the Holy Spirit who is the breath of God our Comforter and Helper- 3 in 1- God! Hope in God and hope not in material possesions or man, but hope in God. John 16:33