Key points
- Deadly storms swept across multiple states during Memorial Day weekend.
- United Methodist churches in hard-hit communities have found various ways to help.
- The United Methodist Committee on Relief is beginning to process solidarity grants to annual conferences that will be responding.
United Methodists have been clearing away downed tree limbs, setting up charging stations, passing out clothes and finding other ways to help after deadly storms swept across multiple states leading into Memorial Day.
Valley View, Texas, and surrounding Cooke County — 60 miles northwest of Dallas, near the Oklahoma border — suffered seven deaths and many flattened buildings from a tornado that hit about 10:30 p.m. May 25.
But Valley View United Methodist Church, in the town’s center, came through unharmed and got busy.
“By midnight, the church building was open and donations and volunteers were already starting to pour in,” said the Rev. Beate Hall, pastor.
The church at first was an all-purpose shelter and provided first-responders with coffee and a place to dry out. But it has since become a donations hub. That includes diapers, bottled water and packaged food, but especially clothing.
“Those who have lost everything can come get a whole new wardrobe,” Hall told UM News.
Members of Valley View United Methodist are dealing with property damage, as well as power outages. They have the jitters, too, after additional severe thunderstorms came through North Texas before dawn on May 28.
No members of Valley View United Methodists were killed or physically injured in the earlier round, Hall said. But they are feeling the loss of community residents who died.
“This is a place where people know people,” Hall said of the town of about 800. “There are connections.”
At least 22 fatalities were caused by weekend storms in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky, according to news accounts.
Rogers, Arkansas, in Benton County in the northwest part of the state, suffered a tornado in the wee hours of May 26. Authorities reported three storm-related deaths in the county.
First United Methodist Church in Rogers saw damage to its historic and beloved sanctuary, including fallen ceiling tiles and the buckling of one of its 115-year-old stained-glass windows. The church campus had many tree limbs down, and a church sign blew out of its masonry fastenings, landing around the corner.
Church members are coping with power outages and property damage.
“I have one family, their house was literally bisected by a tree that fell down,” said the Rev. James Kjorlaug, pastor.
Church volunteers with chainsaws have been helping in neighborhoods, and the church was approached by a local catering firm that wants to use its parking lot for free meal distribution on May 29.
“That was the easiest decision of the week,” Kjorlaug said.
Among the busiest volunteers from First United Methodist in Rogers has been the Narcotics Anonymous group that meets there six days a week.
“They want to be able to serve, too, which is awesome. They’re phenomenal folks,” Kjorlaug said.
In Mountain Home, Arkansas, another hard-hit area, First United Methodist Church has helped stock a National Guard Armory that’s providing shelter for those displaced by storms.
Church volunteers brought ice, kegs of water and disaster kits.
“I took a couple of dog kennels, and we brought some phone chargers to leave there,” said Hollye Lee, the church’s congregation and community care coordinator. “We’ve offered our shower trailer.”
To help
United Methodists can help with the recovery through donations to the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
Donations can be made here to UMCOR’s U.S. Disaster Response and Recovery Advance.
First United Methodist was a rare Mountain Home church having worship on Sunday, May 26.
“We were about the only church in town that had power,” said the Rev. Daniel Thueson, pastor.
In Claremore, Oklahoma, the Rev. Tim McHugh, pastor of Grace United Methodist Church, got out of his house right after a tornado hit the town, causing major damage.
“I went to check on my mother,” the pastor said. “I couldn’t get to her. I had my chainsaw in the back and put chaps over my pajamas and just started cutting trees, clearing the road. Somebody recognized me and said, ‘Oh good, the United Methodists are here.’”
That lifted McHugh’s spirits, in part because Grace United Methodist is only a year old, having been formed in the wake of local church disaffiliations in the area.
He said teams from his church and Tahlequah United Methodist, about an hour away, have been busy clearing debris around Claremore.
“I’ve been doing disaster response for 10 years. This is the worst I’ve seen,” McHugh said.
The United Methodist churches in Salina and Spavinaw, Oklahoma, are led by the Rev. Bill Foster, and he was planning to preach May 26 on the lectionary reading John 3:1-17, including verse 8, which begins, “The wind blows where it wishes.”
But wind in the form of a tornado hit Salina, causing Foster to abbreviate services at both his churches.
“We went into worship to receive words of encouragement and encourage everyone to go back into the community and check on neighbors and family members,” he said.
The Salina church building came through OK, but Foster saw lots of damage elsewhere.
“Limbs down all over town, some on carports, some across houses,” he said.
After the morning storms on March 26, Russellville Temple United Methodist Church in Russellville, Kentucky, had lost power but met in the basement for worship. After worship, local emergency services asked the congregation to keep its building open as a shelter for the evening storms. The church provided shelter from the storm for 39 people. Most were from a local trailer park and other low income housing, said Cathy Bruce, who oversees Kentucky Conference communications.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief, the denomination’s relief arm, is already responding to what many expect to be among the worst tornado seasons in U.S. history.
Subscribe to our
e-newsletter
UMCOR is processing a $10,000 solidarity grant to the Iowa Conference, which saw tornados and high winds slam six communities in the state last week.
UMCOR also expects to distribute solidarity grants to the Arkansas and Oklahoma conferences.
The denomination’s relief arm is working with disaster response coordinators in the Kentucky, Tennessee-Western Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Texas and Iowa conferences, said Susan Clark. She is chief communications officer for the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, which includes UMCOR.
The conferences are all deploying local early response teams and many are coordinating to send support to other conferences.
“This is an ongoing situation, as many folks in many states remain under severe weather watches, notably Texas with ongoing severe storms,” Clark said.
Tornado and flash flood warnings were issued in Dallas early on May 28, and hundreds of thousands of people across the state were without power.
The last few weeks have been memorable in Oklahoma for all the wrong reasons, as Dana Parker, disaster response coordinator for the Oklahoma Conference, made clear in an email to UM News:
“We’ve been experiencing tornadoes since April 25, 2024, which hit southern Oklahoma in the towns of Sulphur, Ardmore, Marietta, Morris and Holdenville. One hit the town of Cordell May 1. Then another hit the Bartlesville/Barnsdall area May 6. May 20, a tornado damaged a few homes in Custer City and Butler, and now the latest, May 25th, tore through Claremore, Pryor and Salina, damage going all the way to the eastern border with Arkansas.”
Hodges is a Dallas-based writer for United Methodist News. Heather Hahn and Jim Patterson contributed. Contact them at 615-742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests.
