Creston, Iowa has been hit hard with heavy rains and straight line winds causing a lot of damage to homes.

 by Frank McCrary, Director for Iowa Disaster Relief

Creston DR 1
The Union County Emergency Manager contacted BCI Disaster Relief and asked for help in cleaning up flooded basements. Some of the home owners could not get federal or state help because their income was too high. The DR Director told Union County personnel that we had no such restrictions and that we could bring in a team to do the clean-up. Iowa DR does not have mud-out teams, so we put out a call to NAMB DR for help. Eastern Nebraska responded with a mud-out team and cleaned out the one remaining basement from the June flood.

In July, Creston once again suffered heavy rains. This time, it caused a sewer main to break. This flooded ten homes. Eastern Nebraska responded again, this time with the help of three volunteers from Sioux City and the DR Director. Crest Baptist Church graciously opened its doors the team. Since they did not have any shower facilities, the new shower unit was able to divert from Eldora to Creston. By the time the mud-out team arrived, some of the homes had been cleaned up. The team took two days to clean up the remaining homes.

Creston DR 2

 

Thank you to Eastern Nebraska for their help, Bob Dillman and his crew from Sioux City, the shower unit from Glenwood, and Pastor Spindler and Crest Church for opening their doors to our teams.

If you are interested in becoming a DR volunteer who would like to make a difference in the DR effort – we always need help.

For more information, contact:

Frank McCrary
Director, Disaster Relief
Baptist Convention of Iowa
iowaSBDR@gmail.com
(402) 681-7213 (cell)