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Pastor Rudd of Pedernales Valley Baptist Church stands by the bathtub |
was to upend the lives of many of his parishioners, Pastor John Rudd of the
Pedernales Baptist Church was driving home through buffeting hail and high winds, barely
able to hold his car on the highway. He reached his driveway and was pulling up to
his house when, suddenly, a dead calm fell. Rain hung weightlessly in the
motionless air, and Rudd’s car radio went silent. Looking up, Rudd saw a book suspended
in the stillness, its pages serene and unruffled. “It looked like one of those
big, family-type Bibles, all opened up, and it was just sitting there, about 25
feet up,” says Rudd. A few seconds later, debris began raining from the sky — plaster,
2x4s, steel beams, tree limbs — as nature’s wrath descended upon Pedernales
Valley, destroying over 30 homes in the area, as many as were wrecked in Jarrell the same
day.
To some, the sign of a levitating Bible on such a terrifying afternoon
might represent an ominous check of humanity’s frail helplessness against heavenly powers of
destruction. Yet others may be heartened by the strength and tenacity of the human spirit
which rises against adversity, drawing people together to regroup and prepare for
better days ahead.
The catastrophe in Pedernales Valley — sometimes referred to as “the
other tornado” even though it was the same one that struck Jarrell — left one
fatality and at least $2.5 million in damages to homes and property. In addition to
the 30 homes destroyed, over 60 properties have sustained extensive damage. More
than a half million dollars worth won’t be covered by insurance. Recently, the
area’s troubles have deepened as rising flood waters from Lake Travis have inundated homes in
Siesta Shores already torn apart by the twister.
Compared to Jarrell, the Pedernales area has received only a small amount
of publicity, largely because the destruction is spread throughout hilly terrain not easily
accessible to TV camera crews. Consequently, Pedernales Valley tornado victims have
received much less financial aid and fewer volunteer workers from outer-lying
communities to help them restore their homes and property. One month after the disaster,
the victims’ lives have been stabilized — much of the debris around their
homesites has been cleared or at least piled up, but many still face months of work and
uninsured expenses. Disaster relief has entered the “marathon” stage — the
long rebuilding period in which volunteer assistance is difficult to sustain
because, as one victim puts it, “the thrill is gone.”
Kathy Miles, a member of Pedernales Valley Disaster Recovery, Inc., the
volunteer committee that has been coordinating recovery efforts in the Pedernales area
for the last month, has little patience for those who choose to belittle tornado
victims rather than help them.
“I hear people who say, `Well, they should have had enough
insurance,’ but I say, `That’s hindsight. It has nothing to do with what people need right
now, so shut up,'” says Miles, the former owner of Pedernales Country Store who
knows the faces of many of those whose homes have been destroyed.
Miles is among a select handful of Pedernales Valley residents who have
emerged, proving to be more than just “foul-weather” friends to their
unfortunate neighbors. Refusing to “look the other way” while others are in
need, these good neighbors have energized their social networks, friendships, and
business connections that spread throughout the community. These connections are what has been
generating needed resources and reminding people both within and outside the area that
for many tornado victims, the struggle is far from over.
The Pedernales Baptist Church parking lot is no longer the busy hub it was
three weeks ago when volunteers first administered relief efforts from a folding
table placed in the shade of a canvas awning, but it is still a focal point for the
members of Pedernales Valley Disaster Recovery, Inc., most of whom have assembled
here practically every day since the tornado struck, coordinating volunteers, arranging
donation pick-ups, and printing newsletters.
Pastor Rudd says his church’s central role in the relief activity was
“one of those things which just happened” after the fire department had to go
on to other matters, but in fact Rudd and congregation members like Kathy
Crawford were among the first people to survey and respond to the damage after the storm
swept through. Crawford was folding laundry by candlelight when she heard what had
happened. That very night she began carrying messages back and forth between the
Pedernales Volunteer Fire Department and victims who needed immediate help.
Although the first members of the volunteer team arose from the church’s
congregation, the core faithful who have committed their talents and resources to the
disaster relief committee emerged from various walks in the community. The volunteers
are motivated by their personal acquaintances with many of the tornado victims,
and equally so by the talents they have to offer. Bill Vaughn, for example, is a retired
safety consultant from California who says he’s just doing what he’s trained to do:
organizing work teams. And Miles, the former local store owner and stranger to nobody,
has contacts she’s not shy about “pumping for all their worth.” Miles called up
contacts in the music business, including Pedernales Valley native Willie Nelson,
recruiting performers for a recent Sunday fundraiser.
Cindy Springer, owner of the Moonview Bar & Grill in Spicewood, meets
with Crawford and Miles in the church parking lot early in the morning. She
shuttles constantly between Moonview, the church, and various other destinations preparing to
host a fundraising event for the Pedernales tornado victims at her business.
Springer and Miles have lined up bands to play the event, and Springer
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Remain of cabin built to survive a tornado |
Kevin Fitzpatrick, an employee with Crawford Excavation, arrives on a
tractor fitted with a dozer blade and backhoe. Owner Doug Crawford (husband of Kathy
Crawford) has donated the tractor to the clean-up cause, and Fitzpatrick donates his
time behind the wheel. He spends an hour or two after work each day and more hours on
weekends standing up trees, dozing brush, and digging holes for the foundations of
rebuilt homes.
“It missed my house by one mile,” Fitzpatrick says of the
tornado. “If I ever get hit, who’s gonna help me if I don’t help somebody else? I mean, I
look out, sitting in an air-conditioned house, and they’re looking for a place to
live.”
Brandishing her busy cellular phone, Crawford laments, “My phone bill
is going to be so high this month. We went three weeks spending our own money.
We didn’t even know we could get funding for this.” Crawford took a two-week leave
of absence from her business, Doris Todd Design & Interiors, to dedicate
more time to relief work. “I have to do this… Once somebody has looked you in
the face and said `I really need this,’ you just can’t let up…. It means sleepless
nights, it means hours on the phone, it means your socks don’t get washed and
folded,” says Crawford.
With available relief funds falling far short of what victims need, the
committee faces the double duty of passing along private donations from churches and
charities and raising the hundreds of thousands more dollars they still lack. The task
is too large to organize in someone else’s space, so they’re now searching for
someone who can donate a trailer or portable building they can use as an office. They’ve
discovered they need a computer, too. The committee’s office, at present, is in the rear
of Crawford’s Chevy Tahoe.
The disaster relief committee’s work has already been felt by tornado
victims, thankful for the cash donations and retail vouchers that have been passed on
to them. Sometimes, its efforts make a difference in less tangible, but equally
important ways to victims like Doug and Tracy King, now living in the remains of their
demolished home. “One of the biggest benefits is that it cheers you up when someone
brings you something — just to know that someone’s thinking about you,” says
Doug. “People out here are so nice,” adds Tracy. The new roof over the
Kings head was built by 80 members of the local Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation of
which Tracy is a member.
Indeed, local churches are proving important allies for the Pedernales
Valley disaster recovery team as it works to arrange Adopt-a-Property programs which
will ensure that victims continue to receive help rebuilding, planting trees,
replacing appliances, and completing other recovery projects in the months ahead.
Churches tend to be ideally suited for such programs because they have organized
volunteer rolls ready to respond to charitable causes. Peter Baldwin, of the
Austin-Travis Country Emergency Operations Center, says that church organizations are often
crucial to sustained recovery work.
Baldwin presents this scenario: “If [a disaster] doesn’t happen to
you, you might go out and volunteer time or donate money, then you go back to your
house and forget what’s still going on.” On the other hand, “[The churchs
have] identified that it’s just as important to be there long-term,” says Baldwin.
For instance, a group of 20 volunteers sponsored by the St. John Neumann
Catholic Church regularly appear on David and Rosa Kester’s property each weekend. The
church has “adopted” the Kesters and plans to supply long-term assistance.
The volunteers stop to rest, visit, and laugh around card tables beneath a
portable awning, which the Kesters kept supplied with snacks and drinks. In the midst of piles
of rubble and smouldering brush, the mood is cheerful. “This can really
produce a community of good will,” says Rosa Kester. “I’d been stripped of
my pride and had to ask for help. Now I can’t say “thank you”
enough.”
Kay Killen, from Riverbend Church in Austin, says she and the others work
hard, but that “it feels really good to see the results when you’ve done this
for someone. A lot of people, they’ve either never experienced it or they’ve
forgotten.”
Not everyone in the Pedernales Valley area has been as fortunate in
receiving aid as the Kesters, however. Some victims, like Barbara Espey and Steve
Slaid, have had few volunteers to help them clean up their properties. Espey, the owner
of Lee’s Cafe, says she is afraid her 25-acre property is becoming a firetrap as the
hundreds of downed trees surrounding her flattened home wither brown in the summer
heat. “It seems like everything has come to a complete stop,” she says
anxiously.
Espey’s sadness and frustration point to an inevitable weakness in any
volunteer system. Volunteer systems (or lack thereof) often develop along pre-existing
friendships and social connections. The recovery effort in the Pedernales Valley has not
been entirely smooth nor, some feel, entirely evenhanded. But by and large, the
tornado victims are impressed that their neighbors have such deep concern for their
well-being, and have been willing to advocate their cause to area residents and outsiders
who otherwise might have forgotten them by now. Pedernales now realizes how
important these people are who need their neighbors as much as the air they breathe,
who cannot look away when others are hurt, and who perpetuate enough vitality to help a
community heal.
Sunday morning comes, and Springer and Miles have seated themselves at a
table in the backyard of the Moonview Bar & Grill, attending to last-minute
details before the fundraiser starts. Donations have poured in for the raffle —
paintings, gift certificates from local restaurants, even a magnolia tree — and
Springer is trying to list them all on a posterboard. The phone rings and Kathy gets it
this time.
“Just hang on to that phone, Ms. Miles,” says Springer, hoping
to be relieved of it for a few minutes.
Meanwhile, Jerry Ray, a softball player for Mizuno, U.S.A., hawks some of
the $75,000 worth of shoes and sportswear donated to the relief fund by Mizuno.
Kevin Fitzgerald is lugging beer and ice, and a number of Springer’s friends ice
the beer in cattle tanks loaned by the local volunteer fire department. As the result
of the efforts of a few people, not only the local, but the wider community have
offered up a generous portion of donations. By the end of the evening, $15,000 will
have been raised for the relief fund, bringing the total to about $135,000. The
next day, Crawford says she can’t imagine how a person could be more tired. Yet,
there’s so much more to do….
Committee volunteers must now begin the process of meeting with the Red
Cross to screen applicants for relief funds and decide who gets what. Meanwhile,
they’ll plan more ways to raise money as the year progresses. They have already
arranged a special cruise on the Flagship Texas. Of course, ticket sale proceeds will
be donated to the fund. They also plan to promote organized clean-up days to lure more
volunteers to special projects. For the members of Pedernales Valley Disaster Recovery,
Inc., life will not return to normal for months to come.
“Please spread the word,” Crawford told volunteers as they
headed back to their homes, “Let people know we’re here, too.”
Donations to the Pedernales Valley Tornado Relief Fund can be sent to: P.V.
Tornado Relief Fund, 107 Hwy620 S., #34A, Austin, TX 78734. For information on
upcoming fundraisers or how you can help, call 264-0825.
This article appears in July 4 • 1997 and July 4 • 1997 (Cover).