Baptist Relief Teams Had to Change Their Strategy in Naples After Wilma

Experienced hurricane disaster relief cleanup experts were surprised when they arrived in Naples and found Hurricane Wilma’s damages would require a different strategy.

Leon Branch, a hurricane cleanup veteran, told the Florida Baptist Witness that Wilma required a totally different approach.

“We had to adjust to the situation; we had to change our strategy and get our teams onboard to buy into what had to be done,” Branch explained. They had to buy different equipment, chainsaws, the ready tool of disaster relief teams, were of little use for the damage found in the area.

Instead, the teams had to purchase sheet metal saws, screw guns and other equipment that allowed them to assist retired citizens in three mobile home communities south of Naples that suffered damage from Wilma.

“We focused on those communities because of the age of the people and a lot of uninsured people,” Branch said. “We rolled some of those aluminum roofs back on and tarped them.”

With five teams of about 45 volunteers completing approximately 50 cleanup and recovery jobs in the first four days of the effort, Branch expected that part of the post-Wilma relief effort to be finished by the end of the month.

The command center also is coordinating Southern Baptists’ work in the preparation of meals being distributed by the Red Cross to outlying communities.

Volunteer Pat Tyler, from Timber Ridge Baptist Church in Ocala, was working her third hurricane of the year.

Just north of Everglades City where Wilma’s eye came ashore, Copeland Baptist Mission was unfazed by the hurricane, pastor John Gilmore said.

“Damage in the area could have been a lot worse,” Gilmore told the Witness, estimating the wind speeds were well in excess of 100 mph.