BETHANY – Until a few years ago, most people had never heard of a derecho (deh-REY-cho), even though the term dates back to 1877 when it was first used to describe an unusual wind event in Iowa. If wind damage wasn’t caused by a tornado or a hurricane, it has generally been blamed on a strong, straight-line wind. In fact, the word “derecho” is Spanish for “straight.”
Today, the term, which has been used more frequently in the last 10 to 20 years, is, by definition, a wind damage swath that extends more than 240 miles and includes wind gusts of at least 58 mph or greater along most of its length. That’s exactly what hit the area around Bethany, Mo., July 29.
According to John Mohler, Director of Missions for the Harrison Baptist Association, based in Bethany, the recent storm produced sustained wind speeds of 60 to 80 miles per hour and produced damage as far east as Indiana. However, in God’s perfect timing, Mohler already knew how to get recovery in motion, having previously been the area director for Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief in northwest Missouri, and pastor of a church in Norborne, Mo. Hence, the first thing he did was get in contact with the Emergency Management office in Bethany and explain what MODR could do to help.
“I think they were a little bit skeptical about what we could do in terms of recovery,” Mohler said. “But they commented later about how impressed they were with the response from Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief and how they couldn’t have gotten things cleaned up without us.
“This is the first time there has been a disaster in the same town in which I lived,” he added. “And we’re still working on building the DR team in this area. Yet we had chainsaw crews on the ground two hours after the storm went through.”
All total, Missouri Baptist Disaster Relief, with help from a team from Texas Baptist Men, completed 163 work orders in five different towns in northern Missouri. Those included Bethany, Albany, New Hampton, Martinsville and Gilman City. Moreover, Mohler said that a total of 118 team members and 18 supervised untrained volunteers assisted over the 27-day period.
“The Clay-Platte Association sent a lot of workers up to help us out,” Mohler said. “We couldn’t have completed all the work without them. Plus, the Texas Baptist team consisted of 15 people for a week. However, we just had a couple guys complete their blue hat training a couple weeks ago, so we’re hoping to build more teams locally.”
Mohler noted that while a couple houses had trees puncture the roof, which required tarping, a lot of the jobs involved removing limbs that were either leaning on buildings or blocking driveways and removing “hangers” that posed a danger to anyone and anything below them.
“As a result, almost every job involved the use of a bucket lift and/or a skid steer loader, since we needed to move debris to the curb for pickup,” he added. “Of course, our goal as a ministry is to spread the Gospel while we’re providing disaster relief.”
To that end, Mohler said they’ve already seen evidence of seeds planted. In one case, the teams were able to build a relationship with the Hispanic community through their work in the community, prompting the association to explore some type of Hispanic ministry.
“Another situation involved a homeowner who told us right up front that he wasn’t a Christian and didn’t believe in that stuff,” Mohler explained. “By the end of the day, after working on his property, he came up to us and said,’ ‘Man, you guys are the real thing. The only other person I know who is the real thing is my mother. She kept telling me there were more people out there like her, but I’ve never met them before’. So, it’s all about changing lives,” Mohler concludes. “That’s why we’re here.”