Emma Jean Jordan of Wellborn, Fla., huddled in the bathtub of her trailer home as a tornado spawned by Hurricane Idalia swept over her roof.
Jordan, who lives alone on her rural property, mostly recalls “being scared. I came back to the bathroom and stayed there because it literally felt like my whole house vibrated up when I heard the choo-choo sound” of the tornado.”
She wasn’t entirely alone. Her two prized Belgian Malinois huddled with her in the tub. “I had my girls with me. They came in the house and were like, ‘Mama!’”
Jordan said God was also with her during the harrowing event. “The only thing I could do was I called out to the Lord and trusted Him.”
When the storm cleared, she and “the girls” emerged from their shelter to find a tree piercing the roof of her guest bedroom and water pouring in the hole.
“I realize it could have taken my whole house,” she said. “It could have taken the room I was hiding in. I was grateful because I knew other people had it worse. I said, ‘Thank you, Lord, that I survived this.’”
Like many area residents, Jordan doesn’t carry home insurance or have the funds to pay for tree-clearing or roof repair services. With no means to pay for removal of the tree from her home or to repair her roof, she relied on the only resource she had: “I prayed.”
The answer came a few days later in the form of TBM’s Collin County Chainsaw Unit, an experienced team of volunteer chainsaw and skid-steer operators.
“These folks were an answer to prayer.” She said, pointing to the team of 13 pulling the tree free of her home in pieces and providing a temporary cover on her roof. “I saw a phone number (on a sign) … near First Baptist Church offering to help. Something told me to call it.
“They are the difference of me not dying of black mold" from further water damage, she said. "I can’t afford to pay, so this means a lot to me.”