CBA chainsaw team responds

Published 2:14 am Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Volunteers with the Covington Baptist Association have been doing storm clean-up in the Dothan area.

CBA director Dr. Otis Corbitt said disaster relief ministry was organized four years ago.

“We created a chainsaw clean-up and recovery team,” he said. “So we have folks who have been trained to carefully and properly use chainsaws, manipulate the equipment, and carefully take down trees still up.”

All of the workers are volunteers, he said, and have an equipment trailer with everything needed to do the job.

“This is our third day in Dothan,” he said. “We worked Thursday, Friday and today, and will go again.”

The team of nine to 11 volunteers, led by Larry Jackson, associated pastor of Westview Baptist, have been able to travel home each night, Corbitt said.

“A lot of times when we do this, if it’s an away game, we go and stay,” he said. “But we’ve been able to come home every night.”

The group is part of the Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief Network, which includes unites focused on feeding, childcare, a shower unit, chaplain’s unit, and the chainsaw group.

“We will eventually transition to helping out our folks in Florida,” Corbitt said.

The CBA also has a specialty laundry unit, which is generally deployed for long-term disasters like Katrina and the Louisiana flooding. Corbitt said the unite may be deployed to the hardest hit areas, but not until some of the more pressing needs are met.