May 27, 2008 - Parkersburg, IA Tornado

We stayed in Picher until yesterday. The situation there was about as stable as possible. Reports started coming in of an EF5 tornado that ripped apart Parkersburg, IA. This is the largest tornado of the year so far, and it was a direct hit on the city. I decided they were going to need our help. We left immediately and arrived in Parkersburg as the sun was coming up.

Tim and I walked into what was left of the volunteer firehouse. The walls and roof were ripped off and all that was left of the garage were steel ribs. There was a lot of commotion and all of a sudden I heard someone scream, “Disaster Recover Solutions!” I heard it screamed again as a man dressed in a police officer’s uniform came around the corner of a fire truck. I identified myself as the person he was looking for. He said, “Are you the guy that owns that large black truck out front?” I said, “Yes, and we are here to help any way you need us.”

He said, “Follow me.” As we walked he said, “My name is Chris Luhring. I have lived here my whole life, and my city is destroyed. I have family who has died, I have friends who have died, and I don’t even know where to bury them. My office in city hall is gone, all the file cabinets, safes, computers, everything is gone. Can you help me?” I said, “Yes, show us where city hall used to be, and we can get to work on finding whatever we can.”

He showed us where to start, and we began digging. We began to pick at the pile of debris with our crane. The tornado was so powerful that houses and cars from blocks away were thrown into city hall – which meant parts of city hall may be lying blocks away as well. Our search went beyond the city hall lot and, according to Chris, we recovered 80 percent of their vital documents. As we stood amidst the rubble with bags of papers, the county clerk we were working with said, “Well, I guess we have to dig graves now.” I explained to him we could use our skid steer to help.

So just a few hours ago the First Response Team did something I never thought we would do: dig graves with the local high school kids using shovels. It was so strange because I never thought I would do something like that in my life. Tim and the kids worked hard, especially on one that needed to be dug double wide for a husband and wife to be buried together.

Chris introduced us to Jason Johnson, the sheriff of the county. They offered to get us a hotel, and thanked us for coming to help. We will meet them tomorrow at sunrise in Parkersburg to again help out in any way we can.

May 15, 2008 - Picher, OK Tornado

After the response phase of a disaster, we often help people clean up their home lots…but not here. This community will not rebuild so people are returning just to get whatever valuables they can before leaving for good. It’s sad because most of what I see in disasters is people rebuilding and finding hope in the rebuilding process.

Today I saw a man stumbling through a pile of rubble that used to be his home. It looked from a distance as if he was having a difficult time walking around the home site. I walked up to him and asked him if he needed help with anything. At that point most of what we were doing in the community was lifting up large objects so people could find personal belongings.

The man looked at me and without hesitation said, “See this home? I don’t care about any of it. This used to be a beautiful two-story home with four nice cars, and I could care less about it. All I want is to find a green briefcase of photos of my mother who passed away years ago.”

His name was John. I explained we could help and minutes later we had the Prentice loader and CAT skid steer pulling apart this man’s home piece by piece. A few hours later Seth thought he found the photos but it turns out there were two green briefcases, and this one did not have the pictures in it. We kept at it and later that afternoon we found the green briefcase of pictures. I will never forget seeing Seth and John standing in the middle of this huge pile of rubble that used to be a home – looking at photos. At that point nothing else matter to John. He didn’t care about anything except that briefcase.

I’m not sure if this is because people are in shock but I have yet to meet someone who has been through one of these disasters, who looked at their home and said, “I can’t go on.” I have only met people who have said, “I’m so glad my family and friends are alive. We can rebuild these homes but we can’t replace our friends and family.”

May 13, 2008 - Picher, OK Tornado

The past few days in Picher have been filled with a lot of hard work. We have done everything from clear roads, pull cars out of trees, and help homeowners find their belongings by removing roofs, walls, and cars from their former homes. We have been so welcomed by this community. The locals have offered us places to stay, and the fire department has fed us.

Still, the situation here is sad. The tornado that hit Picher was an EF4 and destroyed almost 300 homes. At the time, the city was in the middle of what is called a “government buyout”. Years ago Picher was a thriving mining town but now many of the mined dirt piles are allegedly contaminated. Very few volunteer organizations have come to help due to the contamination. The Red Cross, Salvation Army, Southern Baptist Convention, and the First Response Team of America were the only help that arrived – and we are still the only ones that showed up with equipment.


When we first arrived, we were on standby with the generator and within 24 hours we were able to jumpstart the sewage system in the town. We were also told that our hovercraft may be needed since there were still some people missing, and it was speculated that some people trying to escape from the storm in their cars may have been thrown into the lake. Unfortunately, it was true – the dike holding back the lake was dug out, the water drained, and the bodies recovered. The situation in Picher was sad…there were bodies found in trees, homes, and cars. The city moral was already low due to the mandatory government buyout and now everything these people had left was destroyed – giving them no choice to rebuild and forcing them to move out.

May 10, 2008 - Racine, MO Tornado

Tim, Seth, Rob, David and I sat down in a cool coffee shop today just to catch up and talk about something besides work and disasters. Our plan was to get some coffee, have a good dinner, I would get back to my computer to take care of emails, and the guys would go see a movie. I usually always have my laptop with me so as we were at the coffee shop I noticed weather reports were coming in about multiple tornado warnings and watches. A tornado had just touched down a few hours away on the border of MO and OK. With one eye on the computer and the other on a map, it was not long before our planned day of rest was over. We headed to the hotel, grabbed our bags, started the trucks, and headed out.

Just a few short hours later we arrived in Newton County, MO, around 11 pm. We pulled over at a small gas station to look at a map and talk to some local people when a fire fighter came up to my truck. He explained that just up the road was his firehouse. They just called off the search and rescue for the night due to downed power lines everywhere but there were still houses and debris blocking their way into town.

We drove a few miles up the road to the firehouse, introduced ourselves, and explained how we could help. The firefighters were so happy we were there and explained the challenges they were having getting through the debris. I decided to head down to the emergency manager’s office to introduce myself to the man in charge (whose name I won’t give.). I always find out who is in charge. In some cases it’s the fire chief, sheriff, or mayor but in this case the county had an emergency manager. I introduced myself, explained what I had been told by the fire department in Racine, and let him know what resources were available to him free of charge.

For the next eight hours he had me wait there and kept saying, “I’ll call you when I need you.” I attempted to get his attention on two separate occasions and explained how the fire department in Racine was in need of our help – but since he was in charge of the county’s emergency management I was not going to do anything without his permission. He finally said he and his people did not want any help. I thanked him for his time, shook his hand, and wished him luck. I left the county offices and returned to the Racine fire department to tell everyone of the emergency manager’s decision. Everyone was sad because help was badly needed.

As we were saying our goodbyes, one of the firemen got a call on his cell phone. Someone from his family was found dead in one of the homes, and he broke down in tears. I was so upset that we could not help there but I had to respect the wishes of the local government leaders. The team followed my lead, and we started the trucks and headed out of town to a neighboring city that got hit by the same tornado. Though I was upset I knew there was a job for us to do – if it was not in this town, it would be in the next one.

We arrived in Picher, OK, by 3 pm. The road was blocked but the police officer called the fire department explaining that help had arrived. Two hours later we were escorted in to the city by the fire department. They provided us a place to park all of our equipment right in the heart of town next to the fire house where it would be safe and watched 24 hours a day. We then began talks with the city mayor and fire chief about where our equipment was needed the most.

May 9, 2008 - A Rest

The nearest city is Springfield, MO. We just arrived and are going to stay here until our next response. This may be a good place to get some laundry done, get some good food, and hopefully the men can get some rest. There are a few things we need to repair on the equipment, which we will get done tomorrow in the morning.

May 3, 2008 - Ava, MO Tornado

The drive to Ava, MO, was not as easy as we thought. Most of the roads were windy and mountainous. We arrived in Ava around 12:30 this morning. The town was as dark as could be. We found the streets surrounding the nursing home and walked them by foot with flashlights. We had to make sure that the roads were big enough and the trees were cut back enough to bring our tractor trailers through and also that we could get close enough to the nursing home.

All the nurses and many of the patients were congregated in the darkness in the dining room. It was the coolest room in the building on this hot summer night. When Tim walked in to find out who was in charge and the nurses found out we were there with the generator, he was bombarded with hugs. It turns out the Red Cross told them we were coming, and they were anticipating our arrival.

Earlier in 2008, we added a 230KW multi-output generator to our fleet specifically for the purpose of powering up hospital emergency rooms, nursing homes, and other emergency and governmental buildings. At this point I’m glad we did. The facility property manager, Steve Wilkerson, and his wife, Angie, greeted us. Over the next few days we were able to get to know Steve, Angie and many others at the nursing home as we came to power up their nursing home as well as pull some of the very large trees off their property. At times I would see our cameraman David playing a piano in the dining room while singing along with residents of the nursing home surrounding him in their wheelchairs.

May 2, 2008 - Damascus, AR Tornado

What a long day. I woke up at 3 am watching weather patterns and listening to local and national news. There were so many threats of tornados, and one after another they started coming down from the clouds in multiple states. There were many along the Missouri and Arkansas border but it was hard to tell how severe they were.

Around 8 am I spoke to someone at the emergency management offices for the state of Arkansas, and they confirmed that the city of Damascus had been severely hit. The equipment was packed in the trucks and ready to roll since we just finished the clean up in Des Arc the night before. We said our goodbyes to Sandra and the judge and headed out of town. Three hours later we arrived in Damascus. There was no way to block off the disaster zone because a main highway ran right through Damascus so it was easy for us to pull directly into the area. We parked our trucks on the side of the highway, and the men began to unload the equipment. The reports I was getting from the emergency managers on site were that three people had been killed and everyone else had been accounted for. Considering what the place looked like, this was good news.

As we were unloading the equipment from the trucks, my phone suddenly rang. Somehow a small town Red Cross representative got my number. The person on the other line went on to explain they got my number from emergency officials in AR, and they were in desperate need of a generator. Two adult communities and one nursing home had been hit by a tornado in Ava, MO. An estimated 87 people were gathering at the nursing home, and the town had no power. There were people on critically important breathing machines and other life-sustaining equipment, and they had no money to rent a generator large enough for the facility.


Standing in the rubble I had to make a decision. The situation in Damascus was bad but the search and rescue had been completed, and people were out of the rubble and safe now. The people of Ava, MO, needed power – some of them for machines that could save their lives. I decided to head north to Ava.