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