While a recent covert of Newsweek magazine asserted that massive natural disasters are “the new normal” and “we’re hopelessly unprepared,” Eddie Fulmer and dozens of other volunteers from South Carolina were busy cutting fallen trees out of people’s homes and yards.
Feeding crew“Disaster relief just gets in your blood,” says Fulmer, owner of Master Construction Company, who traces his disaster relief volunteer days all the way back to 1992 in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew. “When you go and help someone in need after one of these disasters, it’s just something you can’t stop doing.”
Fulmer and the recovery team from Bethel Church in Prosperity spent a weekend in May in Ringgold, Ga., following the severe tornadoes that struck the North Georgia mountain town in April.
The town of 3,000, about 20 miles southeast of Chattanooga, Tenn., lost at least eight people to the twisters and sustained devastating physical loss as well – at least 110 homes and businesses were destroyed and more than 580 damaged.
“You could stand up on one mountain and see the exact path the tornado took,” Fulmer said, “exactly where it started and where it stopped. You can go through Cherokee Valley and see houses completely destroyed, but right where the tornado stopped not even a shrub was disturbed.”
In fact, Fulmer said, the recovery team – which focused on removing trees and other debris from homes and yards – stayed within a one mile radius of First Church, which hosted the teams from South Carolina and other states. Fulmer’s team was number nine of 12 South Carolina teams to respond in Ringgold. During the same time frame, nine other South Carolina teams were responding in Trenton, Ga.
“That’s just how much damage was right there in the town of Ringgold,” he said.
He added, “One thing that really impressed me was how hard the local people were working, all helping each other out. They didn’t just stand back and watch us work. It was very encouraging to see them as a community working together to help one another.”
Chainsaw teamFulmer and the crew of 10 volunteers – all veterans but one – also had the opportunity to share Christ with some nonbelievers whose yards they worked in, and with some church members who hadn’t been to church in years.
“The Lord has people picked out for us even before we go,” he said. “Once while we were working in one yard, the lady there brought out her 90-year-old mother to meet us. This mother came out, with her walker, and said, ‘When I saw all those trees in my yard, I didn’t know what we were going to do, and I looked out there today and saw you working, and it was like angels in my yard.’ “
“And that’s what it’s about. Sometimes we get so tied up in the work, we forget it’s about the people. That’s what we’re there for, and why I keep doing it.”