Texans on Mission volunteers spent two weeks responding to needs after wildfires tore through Stillwater, affecting about 200 homes in the area and 74 campers at nearby Lake Carl Blackwell.
While Texans on Mission teams battled high winds and blowing ash as they helped survivors sift through the ashes for valuables, the final day was markedly different.
A series of stormfronts dumped rain on the volunteer crews, turning the ash into a fine mud that caked onto their protective suits as they worked.
Ernest McNabb was unit leader for the disaster relief team, working primarily with members of Paramount Baptist Church in Amarillo. He said his team was responding to a fire scene that was “really kind of crazy.”
‘It’s just really a mess’
“The fires that came through here in Oklahoma, in this area, they acted like a ball of fire that was just bouncing around from house to house,” he explained. “And it (the fire) would just land on a house and burn it down, and then it would move on to another house.”
McNabb said Texans on Mission teams had “been cleaning up the ash and getting the metal and stuff out of it. It’s just really a mess. These people, they lost everything.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Russ Dilday and Taryn Johnson and originally published by Texas’ Baptist Standard.
