Tornado damage extensive: More than 3,000 volunteers get to work
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
Over the past decade Ron Harmon, president of the Birmingham Alabama Stake, has traveled throughout the Southeastern United States on a half dozen occasions to join with fellow Mormon Helping Hands volunteers following weather disasters in the region.
On the weekend of May 7 and 8 this year thousands of Latter-day Saint relief workers headed his way. The Birmingham stake, along with the neighboring Bessemer and Huntsville stakes in the northern half of Alabama were ground zero for the largest and most damaging tornado outbreak in U.S. history. On Wednesday, April 27, hundreds of tornadoes swept out of Mississippi, tore across northern Alabama and continued into northern Georgia and southern Tennessee. EF5 tornadoes, the most severe level, were common.
In Alabama, sections of larger cities like Tuscaloosa were destroyed, while large parts of Birmingham suburban towns Pleasant Grove, Pratt City and Cordova were obliterated. Further north in Alabama the small towns of Hackleburg and Phil Campbell were wiped off the map. More than 250 people died in Alabama alone and the total loss of life across the Southeast topped 300.
There were no known deaths among Church members. But dozens of members either lost homes or incurred serious damage to their property. "We have 18 families who lost their homes and 49 who have some degree of damage," said Lanny Smartt, president of the Bessemer Alabama Stake.
All missionaries serving in the Alabama Birmingham Mission were quickly accounted for and reported safe by Mission President Richard Holzapfel. (Please see Church News, May 7, p. 6.)
For President Harmon this relief effort was up close and personal. "Under the direction of Elder [Area Seventy R. Randall] Bluth we set up staging areas at several chapels and prepared to welcome the Mormon Helping Hands coming in from Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee," he reported.
President Smartt did the same for his Bessemer stake as did President Keith Draughon of the Huntsville Alabama Stake and President Richard Youngblood of the Chattanooga Tennessee Stake. Across the region came workers from 12 Georgia stakes, three Mississippi stakes and four Tennessee stakes. All five stakes contained in the Alabama Birmingham Mission contributed volunteers.
"There were at least 3,000 members on the ground for the effort," said Elder Bluth, who spent the weekend on the scene in Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. Speaking at a shortened 7 a.m. sacrament meeting in the Bessemer stake center on Sunday, May 8, Elder Bluth told more than 300 assembled volunteers, "As we look across this congregation we see the power of God functioning."
Immediately following the closing prayer the 300 organized into their groups, were given work orders and headed out to help those in need on a hot and humid Alabama Sabbath day.
As his missionaries joined in the work along with those from the wards and branches in which they serve, President Holzapfel forwarded a text message of encouragement to them he had received from Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve. The message from Elder Oaks: "The Lord doesn't cause these catastrophes, but He surely uses them for our benefit."
One beneficiary of Mormon Helping Hands aid is Paul Byrd of the Shoal Creek Valley community in St. Clair County, Ala. Twenty workers, including six missionaries, from the Birmingham 2nd Ward and the Leeds Ward of the Birmingham stake arrived at his property first thing Saturday morning. The volunteers found dozens of downed trees, several of which had fallen on the Byrds' house.
Chain saws were quickly running and the Latter-day Saints were soon hauling branches, limbs and logs away from the house. "It's incredible having your folks come by," said Mr. Byrd. "If I'd had to do this alone it would have taken me weeks to clean up this place."
The home of John Thornton of the Birmingham 1st Ward sustained extensive tornado damage. His family, including his wife and two children, survived, but a large tree fell on their house. A Church volunteer group helped clean up his house. Brother Thornton also helped clean up many neighboring homes that had suffered damage.
The house of one of his neighbors, Paul Norton, was damaged extensively when a tornado took off its roof, leaving the home almost inhabitable. About 25 LDS volunteers helped clean up Mr. Norton's house.
Mr. Norton was impressed with the efforts of the volunteers and said he had never seen such a wonderful group of people who wanted to help and receive nothing in return.
"I feel really good about the Mormons," he said. "Now I have a lot more respect for the LDS people and my neighbor, John Thornton."
Said President Harmon, "Last fall Elder [Walter F.] Gonzalez of the Presidency of the Seventy asked our stakes in the Southeast to schedule a day of service in the spring."
He explained that his stake and others had months ago made plans for that day of service to be April 30. As a result of that advance planning dozens of bales of clothing from the Church's Humanitarian Services department arrived in Birmingham a few days before the storms hit.
"The result was that just three days after the storms we distributed that clothing to those who now needed it," he said. "We hadn't anticipated the disaster, but through the Lord's guidance and following the direction of His servants, the clothing was already here."
— Marvin Tedjamulia contributed to this report.
