The storm arrived and left in the span of about 20 minutes, but the effects of the storm on Monday afternoon are still being felt by the community.
Around midtown Sapulpa, tree debris and limbs have largely been cleaned up and cleared from the streets, but homeowners and business owners are still dealing with the aftermath.
The Way Church (911 E Dewey) had its front windows suddenly blown in by a sharp burst of wind that traveled north along Linden, taking trees out all along the way, where it met The Way Church on East Dewey.
The impact of the wind meeting the church’s windows was immediate and alarming. The church had already sent all the other employees home, and Cody Cannon, the church’s youth pastor, was on his way out the door when nearly all the front windows blew in. He quickly posted a video to the church’s Facebook Page and sent out a call for help. Within minutes, volunteers showed up to help clean up the glass, mop up the flooded floors, and board up the windows.
Sapulpa Times spoke with Pastor Johnny Merrill on Monday evening following the storm to talk more about the community’s response after Cannon posted the video asking for help.
“Cody (Cannon) posted online that, ‘hey, if we could get any help, that would be great,'” Merrill said. “By the time I got off the phone and got up to the church, we had about 75 people who had shown up, and they had already cleaned up all the glass. They cleaned up the windows. And they had a plan, and they had already started taking plywood and framing it out and getting it ready to go.”
During the live special weather report from the Sapulpa Times, Merrill panned his phone to show the church’s now-boarded-up windows. “They did a phenomenal job,” he said.
“That’s what makes really Sapulpa so unique,” he continued. “That’s what I keep telling people, is that ‘Sapulpa is different than most communities,’ in that Sapulpa really rallies around and supports and helps people.”
He said that same community spirit is part of the core mission of the church. “That’s the heart of The Way Church, to have this many people show up,” he said. “The incredible thing was, it wasn’t just our people from church that showed up—It was other pastors that showed up, and they brought materials and they helped. It was other companies that just showed up and just said, ‘Hey, we’ll help in any way we can,’ and they started donating stuff.”
“That’s just the heart of our community that makes Sapulpa so unique, that we had people here helping, that had trees through their roof, that had holes in their roof, and they came over here to help us, rather than to take care of their home.”
“That’s what makes being a part of a church so important, is that when when you can become a part of a church that has a great heart, you become a part of a community that thinks outside of yourself and really begins to help people in a way that you never thought possible.”
See the full interview on the Sapulpa Times YouTube Channel. We’ve embedded it below:
