Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief Teams Help After Texas Ice Storm

Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief teams were in Austin, Texas to help with ice storm cleanup, which knocked down more than a million trees.

Experts said the storm damaged more than 30 percent of Austin’s trees. Crews said they still have a lot of work to do.

For the next three weeks, Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief will send teams to Austin to provide help cleaning, chopping up trees, and spreading the gospel.

Danny Cotner and his team of seven drove from Claremore along with another team of 10 from Hugo.

Cotner said this is his 35th disaster relief mission.

“This is some of the brush that we’ve cleaned up off the church yard. You can’t really tell how much that is, but there’s a lot of it out there. Day and a half of cleaning up,” Cotner said.

Cotner said teams arrived on Tuesday and noticed people were visibly shaken by how much the storm has affected the community.

“Most people won’t even look up. They seem very detached from what’s going on around them, but as our teams go out and minister to the individual families they open up and are very appreciative of what we do for them,” Cotner said.

He said between each work order, he stops and offers prayer and listens to anyone who just wants to talk.

“It’s a joy. All people are volunteers. They take time off from work or time away from family and so it’s really a big part of what God’s called them to be a part of,” Cotner said.

Local workers are also making their way around, gathering piles of limbs, in hopes of restoring Austin as quickly as possible.

A new Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief crew will replace the previous crew every Sunday until all the work orders they receive are complete.