At least 40 people are dead after more than 970 severe storms tore through more than two dozen states last weekend. At least nine of those states saw destructive tornadoes that took lives, homes, and businesses.
Eight Days of Hope's Steve Tybor, who has been doing disaster relief for 20 years, can only think of one other outbreak as severe.
"We have not seen this many tornadoes in a 48-hour period [since April 2011]," he tells AFN.
That was the largest outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, with preliminary estimates suggesting more than 300 tornadoes occurred across 15 states. 1,858 Eight Days of Hope volunteers from 43 states helped rebuild 70 homes and two churches in Hackleburg, Alabama and Smithville, Mississippi afterward.
This time around, the ministry has already deployed teams to two hard-hit communities.
"We'll be going to Cave City, Arkansas with our rapid response deployment, where anyone over the age of 16 can serve with us," Tybor details. "We provide food and lodging. It's free. We're also going to deploy our rapid response, heavy division. This is a division with heavy equipment – Bobcats, bucket trucks, experienced chainsaw crew that are certified. We'll be going to Tylertown, Mississippi."
Each of those towns suffered loss of life from the outbreak, so trained counselors will be going along as well. Those outreaches will begin March 20.
Tybor says the rash of storms was so vast and so spread out that no single organization can hope to serve it all, and that is why he coordinates efforts with other Christian organizations like Samaritan's Purse and state Baptist associations.
