Highland Terrace Baptist Church suffered severe damage when a strong straight-line gust of wind struck the church, tearing off the roof and sending it through another a part of the building. Photo courtesy of Chet Haney
GREENVILLE, Texas (BP) — Storms with strong straight-line winds have caused havoc in the Dallas-Fort Worth area over the last two weeks, underscoring the severe weather events that have been occurring across the country.
Just before Highland Terrace Baptist Church in Greenville, Texas, received a direct hit from a wind gust on Wednesday night (June 19), senior pastor Chet Haney and his staff sent an alert to the congregation that church activities were canceled for the evening.
“We were just about to go in there for our Wednesday night service,” Haney said. “The front quarter of the sanctuary was peeled off by the high wind. The whole altar area is basically exposed to the sunshine.
“Part of the roof that blew off landed on another part of our building and demolished some of our Sunday School space like a missile hit it.”
Haney estimated that the area would have been filled with students just 15 minutes later had they not closed the church. A local CBS affiliate reported that two teens showed up early and witnessed the roof collapsing.
“We specifically prayed for God to take authority over this storm and prevent loss of life, people getting hurt, and minimize the damage,” Haney said.
He reported that the storm missed an apartment complex and did not touch another residential area even though some of the hundred-year-old oak trees were “uprooted like weeds.”
“Two days ago, life was normal — whatever that is,” Haney said. “Now, we’re kind of in chaos, but God’s been moving and we’ve been seeing a lot of blessings in the midst of this.”
In Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas Baptist Men (TBM) have been providing help to residents dealing with storm damage.
A Southern Baptist Disaster Relief chainsaw crew with the Texas Baptist Men removes a downed tree from a home. Photo courtesy of Texas Baptist Men
“We are up to our eyeballs in chainsaw work right now,” said Dwain Carter, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief (SBDR) director for TBM. “We had, the last two Sundays in a row, pretty bad wind storms go through the city of Dallas. We’ve had about seven chainsaw teams working pretty much nonstop for the last two weeks.”
The winds that hit the area reached speeds of more than 100 mph, Carter said, and cut a 30-mile-long path of destruction.
As flooding and other storms have devastated other parts of the U.S., TBM has sent teams to assist in Arkansas and Oklahoma.
“We would be in bad trouble if it wasn’t for the amazing [Southern Baptist] volunteers that we have nationwide,” Carter said.
Flooding also continues
Over the last few months, floodwater that filled Nebraska and Iowa has been moving south, and now Arkansas, Oklahoma and Illinois are dealing with rising rivers.
“It’s the worst one we’ve experienced in my lifetime,” Randy Garrett, SBDR director for Arkansas Baptists, reported. “Then, Wednesday, we had straight-line winds come through Little Rock and southern Arkansas. Several thousand homes are still without power.”
As the waters have started receding, SBDR teams from Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee currently are cleaning out flooded homes while chainsaw teams are clearing downed trees in wind-damaged communities. Of 200 homes assessed by Arkansas SBDR, roughly 100 have been served so far.
“We’ve had a tremendous turnout,” Garrett said. “I’d estimate that we’ve had probably 500 volunteers come in so far,” but they could use more. He and his team have been conducting emergency flood training through local churches to get more people on the field to work with the trained SBDR volunteers.
In Oklahoma, a state of emergency has been declared in more than 20 of the state’s counties. Since their first storms hit April 30, SBDR has had a presence in 27 cities and towns in the state.
“We think there are probably close to 1,000 homeowners with 700 asking for help right now,” said Don Williams, SBDR director for Oklahoma Baptists. “We’ve helped about 250 of them so far. Southern Baptists have done at least a third of the work, if not more, in Oklahoma.”
Of those 250, half have been flood recovery jobs while the other half have been chainsaw work done following wind damage. SBDR volunteers have come from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention along with teams from Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and California.
“We are glad to be in Oklahoma to serve to help Oklahomans and Oklahoma DR,” SBTC disaster relief director Scottie Stice told the Southern Baptist TEXAN newsjournal.
“Southern Baptists rise to the occasion,” Williams said. “We’ve reported at least seven salvations so far. We’re here to bring physical help so we can speak spiritually into their lives.”
Illinois Baptists, like Oklahoma and Arkansas, are still calling for disaster relief volunteers as they combat flooding in their state. One town, Hardin, Ill., is situated on a peninsula between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, and SBDR volunteers will be able to access the area via a ferry boat.
“We’ve got two locations in Moline [Ill.] and Hardin that will be starting work in the next couple of days,” Illinois SBDR director Butch Porter said. “We appreciate the other states stepping up and being willing to help.”
SBDR teams from Kentucky and Pennsylvania/South Jersey are expected to arrive to assist the Illinois teams, and more volunteers are needed.
