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Homeowners welcome these house calls by Jehovah's Witnesses crew Jehovah's Witness Eric Pierce of Sparta takes a break at the end of the day with friend Jonathan Clouse of Sparta after a long day of cutting downed and damaged trees in Waveland and Bay St. Louis, Miss. JOHN PARTIPILO / STAFF
By LEON ALLIGOOD
Staff Writer
Published: Friday, 09/16/05=20
The Tennesseans, Jehovah's Witnesses from Liberty and Sparta, offered to help out at no cost.
"Wherever there's a disaster, we go,'' said Bill Stebbins, who runs a floor buffing and waxing business in Sparta. "We help out our fellow Jehovah's Witnesses, but we also help anybody who asks us. We don't turn anybody away."
It was the "free" that really got the Jensens' attention.
"It's a godsend,'' said Vivian, a home health nurse who earlier in the week had gotten a quote for $900 to remove a tall pecan tree that Katrina toppled at their rental property. Considering the majority of their other home's damage estimated at $40,000-plus came from flooding, and the Jensens didn't have flood insurance, the $900 was a financial burden they couldn't afford.
The Jensens' home on Jefferson Davis Avenue was soaked by the Category 4 hurricane. According to Alan, a retired oceanographer at a nearby naval facility, his 116-year-old home was built on ground that is 23 feet above sea level The blue house sits on a yard-high foundation.
"And we still had 2 feet of water inside the house. That means the storm surge was at least 28 feet high, an extraordinary thing to happen. We're a quarter- to a half-mile from the beach,'' he said.
"Nobody on our street had flood insurance because the water had never been that high."
But the Jensens are counting their blessings. Their home is still standing, unlike those of many of their friends and acquaintances living closer to the Gulf. All of the homes within six blocks of the water are now just piles of broken timber. There's not even a faint similarity to the way the community used to look. Destruction is complete, in every direction.
Since returning to their home a few days after the storm, the Jensens had been camping out on their property while stripping away anything that had gotten wet: drywall, rugs, shelving, carpets. They wanted to move to a rental home they own a few minutes away in nearby Bay St. Louis, another small town that suffered massive damage, but a pecan tree had fallen onto the yellow, two-bedroom cottage. A dinner plate-sized hole in the roof opened the interior to the elements, and numerous shingles had flown off to
who knows where.
Soon after the Jensens asked if Stebbins and his crew could help, the couple was leading a convoy on the short drive from Jefferson Davis Avenue in Waveland to St. John Street in Bay St. Louis.
The men from Middle Tennessee exited their pickups, surveyed the damage from the ground and climbed a ladder to the roof.
Ken Skinner, a logger from Liberty, came up with the strategy to take down the tree without doing further damage to the roof.
First, the tree's smaller limbs at the top would be lopped off, then three-foot sections of the trunk would be cut, down to the point of
impact.
Skinner, 54, planned to bring down the rest of the tree by tying a rope to the top and having his four co-workers pull the tree away from the house with the rope while he cut the tree near its base.
"I like to come out and help in these kinds of things. This is what I do for a living, cutting trees, so it's what I'm good for. A lot of these people have lost everything. I don't mind giving up some vacation time to lend a hand,'' Skinner said.
Several hundred fellow Jehovah's Witnesses from Middle Tennessee are scheduled to work in Waveland and Bay St. Louis during the next several months, on projects such as tree and debris removal and some home rebuilding.
"People know us for our door-to-door visitation, but we're a lot more than that,'' Skinner said.
Jonathan Clouse, 20, of Sparta said coming to the storm-damaged Gulf Coast had made him grateful for what he has.
"A lot of these people have lost everything. They have nothing left because the storm took it all. I've never seen anything like this,'' he said. For block after block, houses have been stripped to their foundations. Walls and roofs are blocks away, piled up in a 6-foot-high jumble of two-by-fours "This is unbelievable. It'll be hard to describe to the people back home,'' said Eric Pierce, 30, of Sparta, his T-shirt soaked with the sweat and grime of a hard day's work that began at 4 a.m.
Fourteen hours later, the five men and their chain saws were finally calling it a day with the Jensens' pecan tree.
"Pull,'' said Skinner. The rope grew taut on the top of the trunk still resting on the Jensens' home. With a jerk of the saw's starter rope, the cutting machine growled to life. The veteran logger notched the base of the tree on one side and then made a cut from the opposite direction. With a dull thud the trunk of the tree fell to the ground away from the house.
"I can't thank these guys enough. They did it for free, unbelievable,'' Vivian Jensen said.
"It's so hard for me to accept help, but now is the time to accept help. This is just beyond us,'' she said.
"I hope we'll revive here," her husband said. "I think we will, with a stronger sense of being. These kinds of things make
you think."
http://www.ashlandcitytimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=3D/20050916/NEW=S01/509160413/1006/MTCN01=20
More JW hurricane help news article
by PaNiCAtTaCk 6 Replies latest jw friends
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PaNiCAtTaCk
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TheListener
That's a nice story. It's nice to see the witnesses helping everyone/anyone in need. I also like to see them helping individual homes and not just kingdom halls.
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jeeprube
"Wherever there's a disaster, we go,'' said Bill Stebbins, who runs a floor buffing and waxing business in Sparta.
Laughing my ass off!
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Doubtfully Yours
JWs helping others regardless if they're JWs or not. I like to see/hear that.
Thanks for printing this story.
DY
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R6Laser
"Wherever there's a disaster, we go,'' said Bill Stebbins, who runs a floor buffing and waxing business in Sparta.
Laughing my ass off!Why are you laughing your ass off? You own a business that can go out there and help? What have you done to help people in need due to the hurrican disaster?
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Doubtfully Yours
Well said R6Laser!
I only recent the people that sit on their butts and do nothing while other taxpayers pay for their mere existence (i.e, people collecting welfare while being able to work, career criminals).
DY
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Oroborus21
Here is one photo of a KH from the area: