Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief volunteer Claude Moore unloads debris in front of a residence in Okoboji, Iowa. Moore was part of TBDR’s response to the severe flooding that ravaged the area in late June. Heavy rains resulted in rivers rising to record-breaking levels, breaching levees and impacting thousands of homes.
SPENCER, Iowa — For many people, summertime means operating at a somewhat slower pace. However, the opposite is true for Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers.
In the wake of multiple disasters — including a recent hurricane in Texas and flooding in Iowa — the TBDR teams are experiencing a hectic stretch, with volunteers responding to both states during the back half of July.
Stanley Roach, DR director for Knox County Baptists, is overseeing the response in Iowa. Contacted by the Baptist and Reflector on July 17, Roach and his team were on the way to a job site in Spencer, preparing for a very busy week.
“They told us when we got here that were about 50 homes that were on the list for assistance,” said Roach. “And they’ve been adding even more (since we arrived).”
Wes Jones, disaster relief specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, said he was proud to see the DR volunteers spring into action, as they always do, but noted that more teams are needed in both locations.
In an e-mail sent July 17, Jones noted that trained chain saw teams are still needed in Texas and more trained flood recovery teams are needed in Iowa in the weeks ahead.
Roach said the first wave of DR response in Iowa has been strong, and he estimated that roughly 40 volunteers from Knox County were serving during the week of July 14-20. The area was still reeling after heavy rains in late June had resulted in rivers rising to record-breaking levels, breaching levees and impacting thousands of homes.
Roach said the team’s first job was working in the basement of a home that had been flooded. The task included cleaning out freezers, stoves and “really just everything in the basement,” he said. The next house they worked on had more extensive damage and was about “two-thirds flooded,” Roach said.
Knox County Baptist Association volunteers John Griffin, front, and Stanley Roach, remove drywall from a flooded house in Spencer, Iowa.
He said he expects the team will continue to see homes that range all across the spectrum in terms of damage — and the TBDR volunteers are ready to roll up their sleeves and help, even if it means long hours.
“Some of these are older homes, and they have plaster on the walls instead of drywall — so those jobs will be a lot more time consuming,” he said. “You have to cut (those walls) out with a grinder … and that’s a slow, dusty process.”
Roach said the weather in Iowa this week has been ideal for his team. “It’s been excellent,” he said, noting that it was 60 degrees on the morning on July 17 as the team headed out to their job site.
The DR team is being housed at Okoboji Baptist Church, in Okoboji, but most of the work is being done in the city of Spencer, which is about 30 minutes from Okoboji. Roach noted that the reason for the longer-than-usual commute is because there are no Baptist churches in Okoboji.
The team arrived in Iowa during the afternoon on Sunday, July 14, and was scheduled to stay for five days before returning to Nashville on Saturday, July 20. Roach said Knox County would be sending out more teams the following morning (July 21) for another DR trip — this time to Texas.
“We are sending a chain saw team there,” said Roach, “so we will need to swap out the equipment trucks in order to make that happen.”
Parts of Texas were ambushed by Hurricane Beryl on the morning of July 8. News outlets reported that the deadly storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane near the city of Matagorda, located about 95 miles southwest of Houston.
The storm pummeled coastal areas like Galveston as well as the outskirts of Houston, America’s fourth-largest metro area. Nearly three million people were left without electricity, and 20 people lost their lives amid the storm and its aftermath, according to reports.
Jones said “the equivalent of four teams” were scheduled to arrive in Texas on July 20. Three of the teams will work together during the early stages of the response, he said, while another team will be sent to a different location.
Teams and volunteers who are able to respond to either Texas or Iowa should contact Tennessee DR at wjones@tnbaptist.org; eholmes@tnbaptist.org and gmaddox@tnbaptist.org.
Donations to Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief can be made at tndisasterrelief.org/contributions. Click on either “Hurricane” or “Floods.” B&R
