did you sustain damage & need help with repairs for your church facility?
We would love to serve BCI churches by coordinating help between church leaders to do storm repairs on your church facility.
Many Iowa communities were impacted by the devastating derecho storm that swept across the Midwest on Monday, August 10th. Hundreds of communities suffered extensive property damage from falling trees and branches as well as outages in electrical power, internet, and phone services. We will be adding updates as we receive new information about the ongoing relief effort.
Check out this article from The Gospel Coalition on the clean up efforts in Cedar Rapids.
Contact iowadr@bciowa.org for information on volunteering to help.
Relief Updates (9/2)
- From Mike Carlson, Iowa DR Director: “The work in Cedar Rapids will conclude on Saturday, September 5. At that time, teams from Missouri, Illinois and Ohio will have completed more than 100 jobs to assist survivors from the derecho! Thank you for your prayers for this work and for the safety of the volunteers! Please continue to be in prayers for all the teams from many states who are assisting in the aftermath of the hurricane in Louisiana!”
Relief Updates (8/24)
- Disaster Relief funds have been distributed to the following BCI churches in Cedar Rapids: Redeemer Church, Immanuel Baptist Church, Northbrook Baptist Church, Veritas Church Cedar Rapids. Thanks to Ed Gregory for coordinating DR distributions.
Relief Updates (8/22)
- From Mike Carlson, Iowa DR Director: “The recovery work in Cedar Rapids is proceeding well! Assessment and chain saw crews are in the community completing tree removal for affected homeowners. We have teams from Missouri, Ohio and Illinois staying at Immanuel Baptist Church and Northbrook Baptist Church. The Illinois teams are small and would really appreciate some help from Iowa volunteers! If you can assist them for a day this week, please let us know and we will connect you with them. Thank you for any time you can give!”
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Illinois has set up a command center at Northbrook and is bringing in chain saw teams which should be in site tomorrow.
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Missouri continues to operate out of Immanuel. They plan in being on site the next three weeks and will then re-evaluate. They brought in fresh crews and a new commander today.
Relief Updates (8/20)
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Immanuel is still without power as is an estimated 50 percent of Cedar Rapids.
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More chainsaw teams are arriving from Illinois on 8/21 and Ohio is sending two more assessors to arrive over the weekend.
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Texas has transferred $10,000 to Iowa for DR and will follow up with another $10,000 next week.
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Ed Gregory is coordinating the distribution of funds and is in contact with Iowa churches to see where the needs are at.
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With the arrival of more personnel from Illinois and Ohio, Immanuel will be at capacity by Sunday. They will add Northbrook as another site when Immanuel reaches capacity.
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Mike Carlson talked with Georgia DR today and the Red Cross May request a feeding unit. Waiting for more info.
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A DR trainer from Oklahoma put the teams in touch with her son who manages several John Deere dealerships in Cedar Rapids and they are going to loan our teams three pieces of heavy equipment at no cost.
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The site commander, Jerry, from Missouri is going home Saturday and Missouri is sending another site commander to take his place.
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Right now they have a shower unit and a washer and dryer unit on site at Immanuel.
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As of right now, they have 28 work orders.
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Missouri is coordinating with other state DRs to begin working on replacement teams who can come into Cedar Rapids as Missouri sends teams home. Most likely they will come from Ohio and Illinois.
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At this point they are still estimating another 3-5 weeks of work ahead of them.
Relief Updates (8/19)
- Missouri has a command center setup at Immanuel Baptist Church in Cedar Rapids and is actively responding to requests for help. They are providing command support, chain saw, and chaplaincy. They are self contained as far as food and supplies. As of this evening, Immanuel still does not have power.
- Missouri requested a washer and dryer unit from Oklahoma and that unit is now on site at Immanuel.
- BCI Disaster Relief Director Mike Carlson has arranged for more teams to be housed at Northbrook Baptist Church and at CBC in Marion. Right now, both churches are still without power.
- Mike has been in touch with Wes Jones the Tennessee DR Director and they are on alert waiting for information to determine what the needs are right now.
- The Texas Associate DR Director has a daughter in Cedar Rapids and is on site helping his family. They are coordinating with the teams on the field to help with assessment and coordinating.
- There is still a large portion of Cedar Rapids still without power.
- Due to COVID, DR teams need to maintain social distancing at the churches where they are staying. This means there is only room for 15-20 people at each location.
- At this time, they cannot receive teams who are not self-supporting when it comes to food, etc.
- It is important any DR response coordinates through Mike or the Missouri Command Center. COVID is limiting their ability to house and feed people and they are concerned they will get too many volunteers heading to Iowa.
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