UNION COLLEGE

Ateam of Union College international rescue and relief students and faculty spent a week in mid-August helping the residents of Belle Plaine after an unusual windstorm caused extensive damage in the small eastern Iowa town.

The derecho started in Nebraska and packed 100 mph winds as it swept across Iowa, and impacted several other states in early August.

The wind left the little town of Belle Plaine, located roughly halfway between Marshalltown and Cedar Rapids, with extensive damage and no power. The mayor declared a state of emergency and over the weekend asked Union’s IRR program to

Photos Courtesy Union College

come help with the cleanup through a connection with Gideon Rescue, a relief organization started by Union IRR graduate Brock Mayer. The two teams worked alongside each other throughout the week.

The 23 students, two faculty and one graduate helped residents reclaim their devastated town—part of a much larger cleanup effort across Eastern Iowa from a storm that state and local officials say is the worst in the area’s history.

“This is a disaster that we have never seen before. It is something that was essentially like a hurricane coming through the Midwest without advance notice,” said U.S. Rep.

Union Students Help Iowa Town Recover from Derecho

Abby Finkenauer, the member of Congress who represents the Cedar Rapids area, as reported by USA Today.

The team took extra precautions to protect against COVID-19 transmission. According to Kalie Saunders, ineternational rescue and relief program director, IRR students already undergo extensive safety training for working in emergency situations and used the appropriate protective equipment and practices to protect themselves throughout the trip. Additionally, each student received a COVID-19 test upon returning to campus to ensure they did not contract the virus on their trip.

Union’s IRR program is a unique bachelor’s degree designed to prepare students for careers in public safety, emergency management and community development. In addition to earning an emergency medical technician and several FEMA certifications, students spend five weeks in Colorado training in wilderness survival and rescue, and a whole semester in a developing nation studying global medicine and running health clinics in underserved areas.

The program regularly responds to disasters in the U.S. and around the world— including the 2019 Nebraska flooding, Hurricane Harvey in Texas, Typhoon Adai in Malawi and many more.

Ryan Teller is executive director of Integrated Marketing Communications for Union College.

Read more about this trip or support this and future disaster relief efforts at ucollege.edu/ irr-belle-plaine.

Following are some photos and stories from Belle Plaine as told by Kalie Saunders, IRR program director.

Mr. Charles, a farmer in his 80s, lost four of his five outbuildings. Upon our arrival, he was unsure of our motives, and as we worked he kept asking how much we were going to charge him. Price gouging is a common occurrence after disasters and some residents of Belle Plaine told us they were quoted upwards of $20,000 to have trees removed. However, after lots of reassurance, hard work, and swapping stories, he understood we just wanted to help. We could tell he was re-energized by our fast and hard-working group of responders and soon he was working alongside us as we cleared debris. Ryan Haakenson, IRR senior and fellow Iowan, asked Mr. Charles how he was feeling at the end of our workday. Mr. Charles replied by expressing his relief and saying, “I’ve lived here my whole life and it’s finally starting to feel like home again.”

We had the opportunity to talk with the Belle Plaine city administrator. He explained how difficult this storm has been on the community. In addition to homes and property being destroyed, Iowa lost 10-15 million acres of corn—one-third of the state’s corn production and thousands of farmers’ livelihoods. We’re honored to have lent our support to these incredible farmers and community members. Over the course of the week, the team helped clean up more than 20 different sites in Belle Plaine, Chelsea and Luzerne, Iowa.

Partway through the week, we met two men with a crane truck who were the answer to a prayer we didn’t know we needed to pray. Mr. Miller had a rough time. During the storm, a tree fell on his house and punctured his roof. He went out after the storm and started to remove the tree himself, but slipped and fell 15 feet, breaking his back in several places. He returned home after his hospitalization discouraged. After everything he endured during the storm, now he was unable to physically remove the tree himself. When we met Mr. Miller, we knew we would do everything possible to help him. We could get rid of the branch piercing his roof and do our best to patch the hole, but we didn’t have the equipment to remove the tree. While the Gideon/IRR team worked in Mr. Miller’s front yard, Mike walked up. He had been contracted to remove a tree from a house down the street with his crane truck and he came to see what we were working on. We told him who we were, what we were doing in Iowa and about Mr. Miller. Mike immediately wanted to help! He used his crane to remove the tree and spent the rest of the week with us as a volunteer. His truck enabled us to help many more people because he could remove large trees from homes. We hadn’t prayed for a crane, but God sent one anyway. God provided us with the opportunity to do big things for Him, and they got even bigger.

We set out expecting to work hard. What we didn't expect was to fall in love with each and every one of Belle Plaine’s residents. They opened their homes and their hearts to us. We came to give of ourselves, but they gave us a place to stay, food to eat, water to drink, tools and equipment to use, kindness, appreciation, friendships and love. Each of us left a piece of our heart in Belle Plaine and we will never be the same again. #iowastrong