A mile-wide tornado ripped through the town with winds of more than 200 miles per hour on May 25, killing seven residents and injuring 67. It left the small town devastated and Williams and her teammates logged long days during the recovery effort. The 23-year-old native of Bethlehem, Pa., who will be off to Bay St. Louis, Miss., in a few days for another relief effort, said that the initial cleanup work cleared space for rebuilding.
“When we first arrived, it was a pretty big shock to see how much destruction there was, because the entire town of Parkersburg was pretty much just debris,” said Williams, who, along with nine other AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) members, was deployed to the site on May 28. “But we had more than 1,000 volunteers who came to help with debris removal, and life is definitely returning to the town. So much was cleaned up in a matter of weeks that you could actually see the grass and fields again; and most of the debris was piled up for contractors to haul away, rather than scattered all over the ground.”
Williams, who spent most of her time in Parkersburg staffing the volunteer center, was several days into her second project with AmeriCorps NCCC, doing grounds and maintenance work on a summer camp for low-income, homeless and disabled individuals in Little Rock, Ark., when she was summoned to the Parkersburg assignment.
“I was in Little Rock when I was told I had to leave the project early and come to Iowa,” she said, adding that she had about two hours to pack. “I think the reason we left so quickly was because the need was so critical in Iowa.”
Though work included assisting volunteers with debris removal a few times, Williams' duties mostly consisted of organizing teams of volunteers, shuttling them to and from cleanup sites and venturing out on specialized four-wheelers to find properties slated for cleanup.
“A few times we helped clean out debris with volunteers,” Williams said, “but mostly we staffed the volunteer center, shuttled groups to different sites and scouted out daily projects on four-wheelers, looking for staked properties.
“The town was so small that most of the houses got demolished,” she added, “so except for a few properties that were on the outskirts of town, everything needed to be completely rebuilt.”
Most residents, Williams said, either had gone to stay with relatives or had left permanently; but among those living in trailers on their properties, the attitude, she said, was mostly hopeful.
“So many people came to volunteer their time that the homeowners were grateful, because they couldn't do all the cleanup work by themselves,” she said.
Williams, who left Parkersburg on June 30 for a week's layover at the AmeriCorps training facility in Denver before her deployment to Bay St. Louis, Miss., said that she, too, felt more optimistic than deflated at the end of her stay.
“The experience was more positive than negative,” she said, adding that she joined AmeriCorps expressly for the experience of seeing that her efforts could make a difference to people in need.
Her 10-month apprenticeship, which began with training in February, will end in late November, when she plans to apply to dentistry schools. Before her assignments in Parkersburg and Little Rock, Williams also worked on a Habitat for Humanity project in New Orleans.
AmeriCorps NCCC, a full-time, residential, national service program, selects 1,100 young adults each year to serve in rebuilding and community betterment projects. During their 10-month term, corps members work in teams of 8-12 on projects that improve the environment, enhance education, increase public safety, address unmet needs in underserved communities and provide critical assistance to residents in areas struck by natural disasters.
AmeriCorps NCCC, which was founded in 1994, has responded to every national disaster since its inception, and has provided nearly 1.5 million hours of service in response to Hurricane Katrina. The campus in Denver, along with the other three in Perry Point, Md.; Vinton, Iowa; and Sacramento, Calif., is one of four regional hubs in the United States that train and deploy corps members.
In exchange for service, participants receive $4,725 to help pay for college or pay back existing student loans, as well as a small living stipend, leadership development and team-building skills.
Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photo courtesy of Bryana Williams