Self-Guided Tour: 15 The 1980 Tornados
Impactful though it was, our response to the 1967 flood was but a tune-up for the Night of the Seven Twisters in early June of 1980. There’s a story:
Providentially, our Board of Deacons was in the middle of its June meeting when the first storm struck out northwest in Capital Heights, and the lights went out all over town. Peering out into the inky darkness at the sheets of driving rain, and with a dawning awareness that something really big was going on, none of the Deacons dared to start for home. They did what Presbyterians do: they organized. With Rev. Chuck Olsen’s leadership, a team of the hardiest was dispatched to the hospital to bring folks back here for shelter. Another team began to divvy up the membership list, preparing to venture out the minute the “all clear” sounded to check on our members’ welfare.
The third group of Deacons knew where the candles were kept and were soon huddling by candlelight in the kitchen. There they discovered that the phone and the gas stove still worked. They found the makin’s for a big pot of stove-boiled coffee and (weirdly) for seemingly endless batches of home-made cinnamon rolls. Someone called KRGI, so while the last of the tornados were still spinning in southern GI, every Islander with a battery operated radio had heard that the Pres was safe and dry and open for business for anyone who needed shelter and a snack.
Hundreds did, and for the next couple of weeks, the doors of this Fellowship Hall remained open to refugees, volunteer workers, FEMA officials, utility crews, Mennonite Disaster Relief workers, police and National Guardsmen. Anyone in need of a place to crash and a Red Cross meal prepared with the invaluable support of helpers and donors from nearly every church in town.
Oh, and that timely June Deacons meeting? It did not officially adjourn until August, by which time Grand Island’s recovery efforts were being coordinated by the Presbyterian-initiated Grand Island Interfaith Task Force, capably directed by our own Naomi Rueb. And let’s not forget that our town’s highly-acclaimed crisis leader, the decisive and remarkably effective Mayor Bob Kriz, was also . . . you guessed it . . . a Presbyterian. It just may have been our finest hour—so far!
