Thousands of volunteers deploy to Nashville for massive tornado cleanup effort

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – As the disaster recovers, thousands of volunteers were deployed to every corner of Nashville to help with clean-up efforts on Saturday after a tornado swept through the city earlier this week.

Volunteers and tools piled up cars that drove straight to the neighborhoods of North Nashville.

The noise from chainsaws buzzed throughout the area as volunteers transported tornado debris to pick it up along the edges, sorting the mixed debris into three different piles for collection.

On a corner lot, volunteers helped a man search his belongings in a room that the storm had left exposed outside to see.

He had lost his wedding ring.

Souvenirs recovered:Photos found miles away after the Tennessee tornado

As the trucks arrived at Lee Chapel AME church, dozens of water boxes were strategically placed in the bed, along with diapers, gloves and feminine supplies – to be sent to other locations in the city who needed specific materials.

Scenes like this took place across the region, including East Nashville, Donelson, Hermitage, Mount Juliet and Lebanon, regions affected by the EF-3 tornado which traveled approximately 60 miles across the city on its way east.

“I don’t think a city can feel more proud than Nashville today,” said Mayor John Cooper to the Tennessean. He had started his day thanking the volunteers of the Hermitage before seeing the residents of the Donelson Christian Academy neighborhood.

The storm ripped the school apart and moved metal trailers several hundred yards, uprooted trees and shattered the lives of many in an otherwise quiet community near Nashville Airport.

Some for the first time to volunteer shyly headed to an office outside Lee Chapel, where the organizers of Hands On Nashville helped connect them.

“I’m just trying to figure out where I need to be. But I don’t know if I can be of help,” said one woman.

“It’s okay. Thanks for being right here,” said an organizer.

He helped her get started by handing her a pair of gloves, a few large trash bags and a set of instructions for joining a group wearing bright yellow shirts.

“It’s amazing to see the community come together, both those who have been affected and the people who have not. Everyone is really coming together for this effort,” said Lily Sronkoski, member of Americorps from Hands On Nashville.

Craig Lund has walked a street countless times clearing debris from the roadway to allow city teams to access parts of the street. The day before, he had inspected the houses to see how much tarpaulin they needed to cover the roofs and windows.

Lund is from South Carolina and said he saw there was a need in Nashville, so he got into his truck and left. Her daughter lives in Nashville.

“In Charleston, we have terrible hurricanes and people come from all over to volunteer, so I’m just trying to pay off that,” said Lund, who plans to stay until Tuesday.

By Saturday, much of the chaos in Stanford Estates in Donelson had been organized in piles of metal and household appliances, wood and windows, tree trunks and branches.

Some were 10 feet tall.

Minute by minute:How a deadly tornado traced a devastating path through Tennessee

Teresa Williams stood in the quiet morning, watching the thoroughness of her bare life. Behind her, her husband, Clint, swung into what was once her home, a structure torn apart at the foundation by the tornado on Tuesday. Now, in a moment of calm before crews with wheelbarrows and chainsaws hit the streets again, the remains of their house were surprisingly empty.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” she said, laughing.

The couple is one of many who have lost their homes in the Donelson neighborhood. They were asleep when an alert on Williams’ cell phone woke her up. The husband and wife went down the stairs from the basement just as a wall collapsed, sending bricks toppling over them.

Either way, they came out unscathed.

“Whenever I’m here,” Mayor Cooper later told a subdivision organizer, “I can’t believe there were no more injuries.”

Volunteers were busy inside the Mount Gilead Baptist Missionary Church in Hermitage. The church began collecting donations on Friday and will begin to distribute them on Sunday afternoon, said Pastor Breonus Mitchell.

“I saw chainsaws and food trucks and volunteers” in North Nashville and East Nashville, said Mitchell. “I saw them everywhere. I did not see them at the Hermitage. I felt that God was leading me so that our church is also the center of the individuals here who have lost everything. Sometimes, when you are more far from the city, you are neglected. “