Final Workday in Midfield?

On Tuesday, January 19, our third formal workday in Midfield / West Birmingham, 11 CFC team members, assisted by Asbury UMC's skid steer "Abel," volunteered to complete the remaining work orders that Hopewell Baptist Church had available for us.  These involved clean-ups on two properties, one of which was started last week and the other which had to await the acquisition of a Right of Entry (ROE) permission form from a neighbor onto whose property the tree our team was working on in a neighboring yard also fell.  But with all the permissions now in place, we divided into two teams and working under sunny skies but in temperatures that only made it up to 36 degrees, we made short order of both jobs.

The 11 members of the Midfield / West Birmingham Day 3 team were (left to right, standing) Bob Thompson, Jason Cannon, Tim Smith, Steve Boyer, Ken Clements, Buddy Williams, Mark Martin; (kneeling) Boyd Martin, Jim Pressler, Alan Weeks and Henry Averyt.

Team member Jason Cannon brought his drone this week and took several aerial videos and still photos of our work sites.  Images from the air certainly do give us a different perspective of the work we've been able to accomplish. This first image shows the property we worked on last week with the 5 large trees.  Note the red circles where the debris was.  (When Jason brings his drone we'll have to get in the habit of taking "before" AND "after" pictures of our work in the future like we often do with our still photos!)

These next images were taken of one of the properties we completed this week.  Can you see Abel in both photos? Abel lifts debris and carries it to the curb, saving the backs of our volunteers and allowing us to cut trees into larger sections which the debris removal trucks can still easily pick up.

In fact, the City of Birmingham was on top of the debris removal clean-up in Midfield / West Birmingham, too.  Here's a photo of one of its grapple trucks picking up the debris our team had cut and Abel had deposited at the curb not 20 minutes earlier!

Following our assignments we returned to Hopewell Baptist Church where the staff there provided a hot lunch for us - Salisbury steak, white rice, gravy, green beans, cheese macaroni, cornbread, coffee, milk and fruit juice - before thanking us for our work following the tornado that struck their community on Christmas Day last month and declaring that they would be in contact with us in the future if they do happen to receive additional work orders and ROEs that might require our assistance to complete.

So for now, our Midfield / West Birmingham first deployment of 2016 is over.  But do stay tuned throughout the rest of 2016 as we send out calls for volunteer participants to assist in future deployments. Stay connected with us as cuttersforchrist.blogspot.com and through these newsletter updates that will arrive in your email box.

In His Service, Bob

Midfield / West Birmingham Tornado Debris Activity

On Christmas Day, December 25, 2015, a tornado struck communities located in the northwestern corner of Birmingham.  Damage was not as pervasive as we have seen with other tornadoes as the storm apparently touched down in several places and then lifted up again from spot to spot; but it did not seem to cut a wide or long swath in any one location.  That is not to say by any means that there was no property damage.  Indeed, if you were one of the unfortunate property owners to be in the tornado's path when it did touch down, roofs were uplifted, some structures were toppled and many trees were snapped off or blown over.  After all the television cameras departed and most of the chainsaw teams that traveled from distances to help out went home, the remaining debris removal job orders fell to us. A team of 13 Cutters for Christ volunteers (Bob Nabors, Bob Suellentrop, Bob Thompson, Boyd Martin, Buddy Williams, David Moser, Dean Charles, Henry Averyt, Jason Cannon, Jim Pressler, John Boettner, Ken Clements and Tim Smith) plus Asbury UMC's skid steer, Abel, worked for 108 combined hours on Tuesday, January 12 and almost completed everything at the home of Mrs. King on the corner of Wilson Road SW and Howard Avenue SW.  When we arrived we found 5 large trees down on her property.  Others before us had cut away some of the treetop canopies, but much still remained to be bucked and then removed to the street for the city's grapple trucks to pick up.  We spent the morning divided into 4 separate cutter/puller teams and dispatched three of the trees before lunchtime.  We broke for lunch - unaware that Hopewell Baptist Church had prepared lunch for us so we naively ate our brought-from-home sandwiches right there at our work site - and enjoyed the homemade brownies baked by and sent along to us from CFC teammate Nancy Miller.  Thanks, Nancy, for your signature dessert which we all certainly appreciated!  Nourished and reinvigorated we tackled the fourth tree, which was located behind Mrs. King's carport, right after lunch and then turned our full attentions to the largest, fifth and final downed tree on Mrs. King's property.

This large tree measured 49 inches in diameter at its base.  We were able to cut it back significantly but the remainder of the tree - about a ten foot section attached to a huge root ball - was simply more than we could remove with our 28-inch chainsaw.  Even Abel, with a lifting capacity of 15,000 pounds, struggled to remove the last section we cut at the 45-inch diameter mark.

The debris pile we created at the curb was substantial.  We could only hope that the city's public works trucks would have the gear that could lift the large sections Abel was called upon to pile there in addition to the many limbs and branches that we humans could lift and throw onto the heap.

On Wednesday, January 13, Boyd, Buddy and Ken returned to clean up the last debris pile that had been left behind Mrs. King's carport and then they proceeded to work on two other properties in the community, offering 21 hours of service between the three of them. Our plans currently are to return to Midfield / West Birmingham next Tuesday with our large team provided there are chainsaw debris removal job assignments still remaining to be completed at that time.  And of course a follow-up discussion of our work there will be sent to you all.

As always, please remember to visit our blog site at cuttersforchrist.bolgspot.com whenever you can!

In His Service, Bob