Samaritan Purse Tornado Response to 12-Tornado Barrage of Property Destruction and Human Loss In Shawnee, Oklahoma Includes Local Volunteer from CCModesto (article written by John Upshaw)
Through the intwined and often snapped branches of this tornado twisted Elm tree, you can barely make out the home on Leo Street in Shawnee, Oklahoma behind it.
Miraculously, by God’s grace, this structure remains inhabited, even after a violent swath of 12 destructive, and, in three cases fatal, tornados plowed through mid-state Pottawatomie County, centering, mostly in Shawnee on April 19, 2023. These photos taken on 5/24/23.
It is now estimated, by Shawnee city and community sources, that 1,800 hundred buildings and homes were destroyed during the EF2 rated Tornado.
Many more sustaining roof loss and other damage during the April storm. Shawnee Oklahoma population currently stands a 32,100 persons. So, this was an impactful storm.
The structure’s owner , a young woman by the name of Amerelia, graciously welcomed a crew of 11 (not all seen in the photo to the right) of Samaritan’s Purse rapid response volunteers dispatched from SP deployment facility: Family of Faith Church (& University).
Work, in the name of JESUS, included chain-saw and pole-sawing tree stumps and removing, up-hill; debris, including heavy logs, limbs, brush, sheet metal from damaged vicinity and yard of structure. Young woman owner, named above, and renter at the site both came to Christ during this labor of His Love.
