This is not a story about tragedy. It is not the EF3 tornado that hit Beggs on March 6 or the lives it cut short. It is not the damaged classrooms or the feeling of loss.
Those who were lost, and all that was changed, are honored and remembered.
The value now is in the story of how a community came together.
The response began within minutes of touchdown on that Friday night. Oklahoma Task Force 1 and Okmulgee County Emergency Management jumped into action.
Barriers were put in place during search and rescue, and East Central Electric Cooperative crews were not permitted entry until dawn.
For the residents of Grimes Road, it was the early morning sunlight that brought reality into focus.
“It destroyed my daughter’s home, wiped it smooth out,” said Gennie Clay, whose neighboring home also sustained minor damages.
“You hear on TV when people talk about, after a tornado hits, it looks like a bomb has gone off. You never really realize how bad it really is until you get hit,” Clay said. “It looks like somebody took a fighter jet and just bombed all the way down the road. Everything is gone.”
Saturday and Sunday were the domain of the emergency response teams. The American Red Cross brought in a canteen and served lunch. The Muscogee Creek Nation provided a generator for the Beggs Water Treatment Plant.
Utility crews worked around the clock to get basic services restored.
Crossroads Baptist Church became the center of action, a hub for people and resources.
“It was all hands on deck, it was amazing to watch everybody come together,” said Ali Herman, who stepped into the role of volunteer coordinator. Herman spent the weekend putting together the legal requirements of volunteers and sharing information across social media.
By Monday morning, the response belonged to the community. Beginning with Shift 1 at 8 a.m., volunteers got to work.
“We had over 140 volunteers,” Herman said. “From all over the state, people were coming in with dump trucks and skid steers.”
The Lutheran Church Disaster Response Ministry helped to clear and remove $48,000 worth of uprooted and damaged trees at no cost.
Other organizations, like Harlan Ford and the Okmulgee County Rotary Club, also made a difference.
Every day, there were boots on the ground.
Some of those boots were on East Central Electric Cooperative team members. System Operator KT Hewitt said, “The silence was loud. The storm was gone but the devastation you could see told the story of the chaos that had taken place.”
“Every personal item we picked up made the situation that much heavier,” Hewitt said. “Just hours before these were items in someone’s home.”
Subscriber Support Representative Jana Fowler, whose twins graduated this year from Beggs High School, said,
“Tornadoes may damage homes and property, but they cannot destroy the spirit of a community that stands together.”
“Seeing neighbors helping neighbors during a difficult time made me proud to be part of a community that truly cares,” Fowler said.
The community helped not just with time and labor, but also with money, through Operation Round Up. In total, eight co-op member families with damage from this storm received $1,000 emergency grants from Operation Round Up. These funds were made possible thanks to members who choose to round up the change at the end of their electric bill every month.
“It was such a blessing. In the beginning, I didn’t feel like we were worthy of that, because we didn’t suffer like everybody else suffered,” Clay said, thinking of the homes and lives that had been lost. “But that money, I cannot tell you how much it helped.”
Clay and her husband used their grant funds in the first week just to feed the 11 people now residing in their house, and to take care of their daughter and grandchildren who had lost everything. What was left has been used here and there to make minor repairs that would have been too much of a hassle with insurance and their mortgage company.
“I still fight the urge to fall apart, because when you drive, the whole landscape, everything has changed,” Clay said.
“I cannot say thank you enough for all those who stepped up and helped,” Clay said. “It actually gave me faith in humanity again. All the volunteers and East Central Electric […] there are really no words to describe the warmth and the love I felt from everybody.”