Spring twisters rampaged through cities like Tuscaloosa, Ala. Entire communities were torn apart, leaving thousands homeless and more than a million people without power.
The Joplin tornado came just one month after killer tornadoes struck the South during two different weeks in April.
On April 15-16, more than 50 people died across 14 states—from Oklahoma to Virginia—after some 250 tornadoes ripped through the South. In North Carolina alone, 21 died when a reported 60 tornadoes struck on April 16. In response, 1,500 North Carolina SBDR volunteers were mobilized for feeding and chainsaw work.
On that same weekend in Alabama, an estimated 40 tornadoes gashed through that state, including an EF-3 tornado that destroyed the sanctuary of Boone’s Chapel Baptist Church near Prattville, Ala., and killed three family members who lived about 200 yards from the church in a mobile home.
But the April 15-16 tornadoes were merely a foretaste of what was to come on April 27, when some 300 people were killed in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Arkansas by an even deadlier spate of tornadoes. More than 249 were killed in Alabama alone when a mile-wide tornado plowed 200 miles northeast from Tuscaloosa up to Fort Payne and over into Ringgold, Ga.
In the two weeks following the April 27 tornadoes in Alabama, SBDR mobilized almost 5,900 trained volunteers—from 10 state conventions—to work in Alabama. Among those 5,900 volunteers were more than 200 SBC chaplains, who fanned out across Alabama to do grief counseling and help tornado victims cope with the high stress levels brought on by grief over lost loved ones and massive property damage.
State conventions responding in the aftermath of the deadly and historic Alabama tornadoes included Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, South Carolina, the Southern Baptists of Texas and units from Texas Baptist Men.
After the state disaster relief teams stood down in storm-ravaged Alabama and Missouri, other state teams were deployed to Brimfield, Mass., and Williston, Vt., where three tornadoes ripped through western Massachusetts on June 1, killing four and impacting 19 communities. Some 30 SBDR volunteers from Kentucky, Tennessee, Pennsylvania/South Jersey, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina and Maine were deployed to Massachusetts. They included SBDR recovery, feeding, assessment, chaplaincy and shower units.
18 Fall 2011 •
onmission.com
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