Detroit Flooding - August 2014

I have heard back from some connections in Detroit about the severity and need for assistance there from flooding a couple weeks ago. While this has not made the news here, I'm told there are still over 2000 outstanding requests for assistance mucking out flooded houses and treating for mold, which has to be getting pretty intense by now. The local VOADs are well organized and have a good process going, but just need more workers. While I cannot personally commit to going up, I can help organize a team or two of you if you are interested in helping out. Message me here or send an email to john@servantsunite.org Here is an email I received back yesterday with some of those details. I've also seen that Methodist Disaster Relief and Southern Baptists are working in the field.

Hi John, My name is David Eisenbaum, I'm the Project Director for All Hands Volunteers in Detroit; I'd be happy to answer some of your questions about the recent flooding. The State is operating a Recovery Coordination Center (RCC) to handle intake requests. It's a very well coordinated system and is collaborating closely with the VOADs on the ground doing the cleanup. At present there at least 2000 outstanding requests; it is expected that number may go up as more cities and EM's feed their lists of affected residents into the RCC database. Most of the requests are for debris removal, mucking, gutting and mold treating of flooded basements. I'd be happy to try and answer any additional questions you have. Do you think your organization is interested in being part of the response? Regards, David

To loyal volunteers checking in about current response efforts, Servants Unite is dormant, but not dead. While disasters continue to happen, there has been little response from our community of volunteers in recent years to go and serve in these disasters or as a group within our communities as originally planned in our mission. When we had activity at the level we did following Katrina and our founding a nearly full time effort was warranted to build and promote trips, perform reconnaissance after events, and lead volunteers in remediation work to His glory. Since Hurricane Ike, however, there has been little for me to do in this regard and where I've tried to muster up support for organized response, nothing has come together. I've moved on to a new mission while leaving the door open on our relief efforts, maintaining the 501(c)3 non-profit corporation that is Servants Unite. I would welcome any of you who wish to advance that cause to contact me to move us forward. My phone number is still 614-404-8610 and my email is still john@servantsunite.org. This does not mean I don't still track relief efforts by other groups so if you would like guidance on efforts you can join or help putting some people together to work on a project, even to check in and say hi, I am at your disposal. To keep you informed on my life, I've moved from responding to disasters to preventing them. After 2 years at American Electric Power, I'm working for the Electric Power Research Institute (www.epri.com) managing projects to secure technology that is increasingly controlling the world-wide power grid. This has been nearly as consuming and rewarding as disaster relief and I'm blessed to not only work with amazing people like you from all over the world, but recover some of the financial sacrifices Servants Unite required of our family. I pray you are all surviving if not thriving in your endeavors in the fallen world we live in and that you find some time to show Jesus to the world in your way whenever possible. You have certainly been exemplary hands and feet in our work together. I'm proud to have been blessed by God to have been a part of His plan shoulder to shoulder with you. John McGuire Servants Unite!

Hurricane Irene

Pray for Atlantic coastal areas as Hurricane Irene heads in as a major hurricane. Projected course is strafing by the North Carolina Outer Banks as a category 3 or 4 (up to 135 MPH winds) and continuing just offshore up New England. The last major hurricane to hit New York City flooded lower Manhattan with a 13 foot storm surge nearly 100 years ago. That could be a worse scenario that New Orleans was with Katrina.

Followup Article on Hurricane Ike Recovery

Two and a half years ago, Hurricane IKE flattened all but 1 house on a strand of beach on the Boulevar Peninsula. One house built higher and more solid than the others evaded the wave action that removed all neighboring construction. This CNN article follows up on the owners and the situation in Gilchrist Texas.

Please sign up for email updates in our new system

The link is in the top right corner of the blog: http://servantsunite.blogspot.com

I'm having a very difficult time getting email updates out. 50% are failing, most Hotmail addresses won't get updates due to spam filtering and a number of others are also failing.

To continue to get email updates of postings here sent to your email, please use the link to the left to enter your email address into Google's FeedBurner tool for Servants Unite. The email address will be used for no other purpose than this. I'm an IT Security guy.... you can trust me :-)

There will be a period where I'll continue to use the old system so you may get a couple of dups that way, but it is unavoidable. I'll send this signup link to any of the addresses I can get mail through to so they can sign up through the new system as well.

Thanks for continuing to follow what we are doing and continued participation in relieving suffering. There's a lot to go around right now. You are needed more than ever.

Servants Unite!

John McGuire

Jackson Ohio Flooding Mudouts Needed

Red Cross in Jackson is doing intake on needs after the flash flooding in Southeast Ohio this week. County EMA estimates 30-40 major or destroyed (destroyed usually means basement walls are caving in or foundation is unstable) and another 150 minor. That's a lot more than the media seems to be reporting.

If you wanted to help in Tuscaloosa or Memphis, but you just can't get off work, THIS IS YOUR OPPORTUNITY. The kewl thing is, we can work all day, drive an hour and a half home, get a shower and sleep in our own beds. If you are interested in working this weekend, let me know. Call, email, fb, whatever.

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Servants Unite!

John McGuire

Opportunity to send donations to Tuscaloosa

Since our Servants Unite trip keeps getting postponed, I'm going to add our donations to this effort leaving this weekend.


OK, it's official: the Maple Grove UMC Adult Mission Team is going to take supplies to the Hargrove UM church in Tuscaloosa, Alabama on our way to New Orleans to work with Habitat. We will load a Penske truck (unless someone still comes through with a free truck) in the Maple Grove parking lot on Saturday, May 14 from 4 - 6 p.m. We are in need of a couple of people to load the truck - (maybe some of you who want to help with the mission trip but aren't able to go). Please let Bill Croy (bcroy22@gmail.com) know if you are willing to help in this way. We have arranged to leave the truck in Tuscaloosa and thus will not be in need of any extra drivers.

The supplies we will be taking to the tornado damaged area include the following: Household cleaning supplies, laundry detergent (liquid or dry), Clorox wipes, spray cleaners, paper towels, toilet paper, non-perishable foods (peanut butter, canned goods), scrub brushes, handi-wipes or reusable wipes, sponges, scouring pads, clothespins, clotheslines, heavy duty trash bags, dust masks, waterproof gloves, work gloves, It's important that items be either medium or small sizes (not the huge warehouse club sizes) because the items are distributed daily and are intended to handle 1 - 2 days of work. The distribution center at Hargrove UMC is open 7 days a week and they serve lunch and dinner every day.

Now, what would really be helpful is all donations being packed in a sealed cardboard box and it clearly marked on the outside what is in the box! This will help us with the packing - and not cause us to take time boxing items on Saturday!

OK: feel free to repost and send to others! Let's see what the internet, Facebook, phone calls can produce in less than 48 hours! Thanks for your help and we know the people of Tuscaloosa will be appreciative as well. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Bill at the above email address. Oh, and financial donations are welcome as well - checks made out to Maple Grove UMC will be used to purchase items and checks made out to Hargrove UMC for their daily lunch and dinner ministry to those helping cleanup Tuscaloosa and those who have lost everything! It would be helpful if we had the checks by 6:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Sincerely,

Bill Croy

I hate it when He tells me no...

...Or more properly not yet... It seems like a logical plan. It seems like honorable service... but He's still saying not yet. I'll appreciate all your prayers asking for why and when and what's this all about. If you get an answer for me, please forward it along.

For the 2nd time in two weeks I'm putting off a Servants Unite trip to Tuscaloosa. For various reasons most of those who have wanted to go can't yet. All the maybes were no when I tried to solidify the list today. and there are only three of us that were going to go. That plus I've been somewhat ill, have work commitments, and something kinda feels wrong about going even though it seems quite reasonable to me. I've pushed these things enough times to know that if it looks hopeless and He wants it to happen, He takes the barriers away, and if it seems reasonable, but He's against it, it doesn't really matter what I do to push it along, it's not happening, or there's a darn good reason He is telling me to wait. Patience is not one of my virtues... So unless something changes drastically in the next 24 hours indicating alternate instructions, no trip to Tuscaloosa for a few weeks still. I'll keep you posted.

Alabama (and other) Relief Will Continue

We have 4 people (ish) going Thursday targeting Tuscaloosa. There are also a dozen or so more people interested in going on later trips. Given the pace of recovery in Alabama and other tornado stricken areas and the 500 year flood taking place along the Mississippi River, there will be plenty of opportunities for more to go. If you are thinking about it, get me your contact info and preferred dates and I'll help get you hooked up with others to form a team.

If you'd still like to join this first team let me know ASAP. If you have supplies to send along, please get them to Westerville Christian Church ASAP. Here's the present list of attendees:

John McGuire
David McGuire
Rachel Creager
Kenny Nichols

Your prayers and contributions are very appreciated.

Volunteers Flood Tuscaloosa Today

A story from Tuscaloosa today describes traffic jams of volunteers of untold numbers showing up to help. Disaster relief is always fluid and never predictable.... We'll keep watching and plan accordingly.

Why is This Tornado Outbreak Different?

While out of the area response is not usually necessary for tornado events, this NOAA report released today shows an unrecorded density of tornadic storms last week.

305 tornadoes suspected, 190 on the 27-28 timeframe that included most of the Alabama damage. The previous 24 hour record was April 3-4 1974 @ 148 that included the infamous Xenia tornado.

This NOAA map of storm rotation highlights the severity of the storms, widespread effect, and the most damaged areas highlighted in bright yellow and red for the greatest rotation.

Here is the article explaining the map.

Reschedule Alabama Team 1 - May 12-18

I updated the information on the original blog post for our first trip. More people were available to go a week later, it gives us more time to get things in order, and that'll put us there when the local volunteers may start to wane so we can fill in some of the need. We may look at touching some outlying areas that may have been hard hit, but neglected and may start becoming more apparent by the time we get there.

You can find good first hand information about the changing conditions there at these sites:

http://gracedigest.com/2011/05/01/rising-from-the-rubble-in-tuscaloosa/

http://oneinjesus.info/ as well as other thoughts by Jay Guin

http://www.facebook.com/pages/SBC-Disaster-Relief/248933738262

Southern Baptist Disaster Relief Updates

Lots of info here and here. As always, their crews are moving into the areas effected in large numbers.

Response Schedule

I'm rethinking the "leave Thursday 5/5" plan in favor of going a week later. Several have expressed an interest to go, but later. I'm also having a hard time getting organized with competing priorities.

Opinions and council from anyone reading is appreciated.

Other considerations, the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi are at an all time high flood level and extreme measures such as blowing levies to sacrifice rural areas in favor of population centers are being implemented.

When it rains it pours right?

Servants Unite!

John McGuire

Indications of the need for counselors on disaster relief missions

This CNN Story

"It's just an amazing, emotional roller coaster for these people," he said. "Once we were able to take a break from it and think about it, it was heartbreaking."

Tuscaloosa Bound Thursday May 12

Please ask to have this announced at your church Sunday morning and distributed through church emails, facebook pages, tweets, twits, or whatever works.

You can be serve
Servants Unite Alabama Team 1 will leave Thursday May 12 at 3:00pm from Westerville Christian Church 471 College Avenue, Westerville Ohio 43081
We will arrive at University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa around midnight central time
We will work long days Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There may be an option for some to return Sunday evening. Depending on the situation we will continue to work into Wednesday afternoon, then head home. That will get us back at Westerville Christian after midnight Wednesday night.

We'll know more after we spend a few days down there, but there will likely be an opportunity for other teams to go and help in the coming weeks.

You can help from here
Please ask your churches to be collecting the following items that we can take to distribute or get supplies nearby if available:

• Personal care items - soap, shampoo, razors, deodorant, tooth brush, toothpaste, etc.
• Baby care items - diapers, wipes, bottles, formula, etc.
• Water and gator aid
• Tarps
• Gift Cards - Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart (there aren't krogers or giant eagles in Tuscaloosa ;-)
• Cash - to help with travel expenses, food, and other needs in Tuscaloosa
• Prayers

These things need to get to Westerville Christian. If you have a lot and can't get it there, please let me know and we'll arrange a pickup. If you collect more after Thursday, that is OK. There will probably be additional teams and I'll be sure to get what we have delivered to the area whether or no and it will be needed.

There are a lot of places we could work, but we have a relationship with this church who has housed many of our volunteers overnight and fed us all so well on the road for Katrina relief. It's a small honor to be able to help them in their time of need.

Like after any large disaster there is much uncertainty. These trips are always like that. We will know a lot more this time next week after being on the ground and working for a few days. Everything we learn will appear on the blog here.

You should plan to bring:

• Air mattress
• Sleeping bag
• Pillow
• 6 days worth of grungy clothes (something clean to wear home)
• Sturdy shoes/boots with thick soles. Steel toes may be beneficial
• Basic personal care needs -toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, shampoo, deodorant (this is not a beauty contest)
• Work gloves
• Dust Masks (N95 are best)
• Tools - chain saw, sawzall, pry bars, shovels, sword (Bible :-)

As always, the most important job is to listen to people's stories and help them with their needs, emotional, spiritual, and physical.

Thanks for serving.

Servants Unite!

John McGuire

Volumes of Tuscaloosa Tornado Information

Jay Guin at University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa has been putting together a lot of interesting and useful information. Rather than try to re-create that

See his blog here. I'm sure I'll reference it more as we move forward.

Specifically he references a radar map of the tornadic storms crossing Alabama. Rather than a line of storms, it's a chain of individual storms. I see 15 distinct bow echos that indicate the cells are Tornadic.

There's also a concise map of tornado paths.

University Church is now accepting volunteers. Tentative departure date for a team is next Thursday evening, May 5 from Westerville Christian Church at 6:00. This may well change as we work out details, but that's something to shoot for. Several have already volunteered to go.

Jay has a list of items needed near the end of this blog post.

We're Going....

I don't know where and don't yet know what we need, or who is available to lead teams. Start letting me know if you are interested. Phone and email are to the side and you can reach me on facebook too.

PLEASE PRAY FOR DISCERNMENT. There's too much to absorb and sort out right now.

I know of 4 bad off locations hundreds of miles apart where we have connections.
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University Church of Christ in Tuscaloosa is just a block north of the tornado path as is the church of another friend, Church of the Highlands, there who is starting up a relief effort. Homewood Church of Christ in southwest Birmingham has also hosted teams. My friend was the preacher there till a month ago. The building is fine, but there is "death and destruction" all around. The state VOAD is apparently not engaged, but that may change. No other organizing group has surfaced to lead unaffiliated groups like ours in intake and volunteer organizing like Hands On Nashville did after the floods there last year. There is a likelihood the damage and loss of life is much greater than has been reported. There is also a water shortage as the storm took out several water storage towers.

Monrovia Church of Christ in Huntsville wants to start up a "Tammany Oaks" style relief operation there. Tim Hines called with that info an hour ago.

Chrissy Wyatt, one of our Hilltop Rescue buddies in Chattanooga reports that areas 10 miles east of there and down into Ringold Georgia are really bad as well.

I can't decide where to go first, or whether I personally can go at all. Southern Baptist Disaster Relief groups report on their fb page that they are deploying all over the region. Information should start to gel in the next couple of days, but like Katrina, nobody knew the whole story till a week and more after the event.

You can help here now by organizing your churches to collect cash, gift cards to home improvement stores, tools, and probably water. Getting money and gift cards in will be easy. Water and tools will require some drivers and trailers.

Could really use a source for a double axle enclosed trailer for things like this if you know of any.

Servants Unite!

John McGuire

Tuscaloosa Situation

This is a blog by an Elder at University Church of Christ, just north of the tornado's path in Tuscaloosa. A couple good posts of information now and more worth following to come I'm sure.

Record Tornado Outbreak

Yesterday was a very bad day for a lot of people. Numbers are still coming in, but hundreds are dead, thousands homeless, and the quantity of tornadoes yesterday, over 170, has far surpassed the record set 37 years ago.

The worst tornado outbreak in U.S. history occurred in April 1974, when 148 twisters touched down in 13 states over a 16-hour period, according to the National Weather Service. The agency said 330 people died and 5,484 were injured in a path of damage that covered more than 2,500 miles.

The worst of these was a mile wide F5 that destroyed most of my wife Melinda's home town, Xenia, Ohio.

Yesterday's rush hour tornado that hit Tuscaloosa just south of the University of Alabama was the same kind of beast. It had been on the ground for 2 hours and continued through more towns after Tuscaloosa. There are a number of videos of the tornado churning through town on the Alabama Fox 6 station.

The path was just a few blocks south of the University Church of Christ where we've had teams stay on the way down or back from Katrina relief trips. I've traded a couple texts with Sandy who organized our stays. Knowing this church and their proximity to ground zero I expect they'll be working with members and the community to help recovery. While tornadoes usually do not require outside assistance, our relationship with this congregation and the scale of this damage may mean we are needed. I'll post updates here and on facebook