Tornado survivor Rev. Joey Reed, lead pastor for Mayfield First United Methodist Church in Mayfield, Kentucky, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that he rode out the storm in a basement closet with this wife.
“We got to the church and found ourselves in the basement. And, according to the safety plan, we should have been in a hallway in that basement,” Reed Said. “If we had stayed in that hallway, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. We ended up in a classroom and a closet in that classroom actually riding out the storm and waiting for the tornado to go past.”
Much of the church was destroyed by the tornado. Reed said it would take years to rebuild the sanctuary.
“My experience with natural disasters and damage of this magnitude indicates that we’re going to be a long-time rebuilding. We’re going to have to find some temporary normal until we can do that,” Reed said.
He says that he told his congregation that God did not do this to Mayfield, but that this was something that happened in Mayfield.
He also told CNN that people stepped up and moved into action immediately to help when it was needed.
“When we realized after the storm that our family car had been buried under the north wall of the sanctuary, I needed a ride. So, I reached out to one of my members and John and Marilyn Marshall came running in the middle of the night after a major tornado to fetch us and bring us back to the parsonage. I walked into the service of worship yesterday without a car, with no electricity and no water. And I walked out with a set of car keys from one of my members who said i just cleaned everything out and put a fresh tank of gas in. And I’m going home to a generator. So, this is the way that they step up,” Reed told CNN.
Reed said he was grateful for all the help they have received so far like, but they need diesel, food for volunteers, among other things.
He says that he expects the recovery to start in two years, but he is in this for the long haul.
The pastor said the church “has received countless gifts” on their online portal and it’s allowed them “to move very quickly into the recovery, well into the relief phase, and we are finding out the recovery is going to take years. It won’t start for almost two years, according to the people that I’m talking to.”
Source: www.cnn.com