While TBM chainsaw teams served in Florida after Hurricane Idalia came ashore, members of the TBM Asset Protection and Electronic Support teams deployed just over the state line to hard-hit Valdosta, Ga., protecting equipment and teams working in an unsafe area of town there.
Fred Stover, who led the Asset Protection team of three, said his group’s “mission here is to be the hands and feet of God” and “to keep our people and our equipment safe. We’re taking care of Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers and we are watching over them as they sleep at night and their equipment is sitting in the parking lots.”
The TBM team’s mission was to “keep our people and equipment safe," said Stover. "They're really concerned for the safety of the people here."
Stover, a member of Taylor Valley Baptist Church in Temple, has a background in law enforcement. He said the TBM team was called in “because there has been some looting and there has been some individuals who’ve not been law-abiding citizens and taking advantage of a bad situation, so they're really concerned for the safety of the people here.”
The Asset Protection team was assisted by the TBM Electronic Support unit. Members Doug Smith and Ed Dameron set up the Electronic Support trailer that houses a built-in video tower and monitoring station, provides high-speed wi-fi to responders, and can broadcast video to Asset Protection team members stationed nearby … or anywhere else.
“We're setting up security cameras for Asset Protection so they can keep an eye on the site at night,” said Smith, a member of Lake Pointe Church’s White Rock campus in Dallas. “They've had some issues in the area, and the Georgia team doesn't have a system like this, so we came over to set this one up and let them use it.”
Fellow unit member Ed Dameron, a member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, said the value in providing asset protection to other Baptist men's groups is often “peace of mind for deployed teams. They commented last night how relieved they are that we’re here to provide them asset protection. This camera system provides the Asset Protection team the opportunity to see what targets or what threats are out there before (the target) can even see it.”
ABOVE: Ed Dameron (left) and Doug Smith, members of the TBM Electronic Support unit, set up a solar-powered camera to monitor a parking area for responders from multiple Baptist state conventions responding to damage from Hurricane Idalia.
TOP PHOTO: Amid the bustle of the Incident Management Team trailer of the Georgia Baptist Convention, Fred Stover (in denim shirt) readies a multi-camera security monitoring system for the night.