Ice Storm Campus Recovery Efforts
The February 12th ice storm hit Corban hard. The campus was littered with everything from small and large limbs to complete trees. All of the roads and most of our pathways were completely blocked.
Since the storm, our teams have been working hard to not only keep up on their normal duties, but cutting up firewood, splitting larger pieces into manageable sizes, hauling and chipping limbs almost daily. Our crews have created well over 200 yards of wood chips throughout this time, and needless to say, the wood-chipper has gotten a great workout! Employees have benefited by the excess in wood chips and firewood, which has been encouraging to see. We have also saved several larger logs to cut into slabs, in hopes of making something creative with them. Corban hopes to create good memories out of an event that was so devastating to some of the natural beauty on our campus – our trees.
With PVG, Balyo, and Davidson losing power in the storm, another task we took on was getting them setup to run at least some lights and heat with generators. This took quite a bit of fast, creative thinking and teamwork (and the help of an electrician), but we were able to find equipment, and get this done. When power finally came back on, students were literally yelling and jumping for joy in the dorms!
Our Grounds Supervisor, Troy Adevai, has done a remarkable job of overseeing this clean-up effort, and has worked very hard to restore campus to its orderly, beautiful condition as soon as possible. Aren Jensen has also been very helpful to us in strategizing the most efficient way to accomplish all of the tasks, and even loaning us equipment to help make the process faster and easier. His crews have also been onsite helping to relieve some of the burden off of our Grounds crew. The partnership between Troy Adevai and Aren Jensen has been very instrumental in getting us to the point we are at now. Another partner in this clean-up process has been Steve Papendeick, from Papendeick’s Tree Service. He and his crew have been out several times, climbing and taking down the larger and more dangerous trees, to mitigate the risk of injury to our students and our employees. Steve is also a strong Christian, and it’s always a blessing getting to work with him at Corban .
We had a couple of work parties early on, and one being a student work party where we had over 20 students come volunteer and make a big dent in the clearing process. It was a fun Saturday, teaming up with our Corban students, working hard together to clean up our campus (and eat a few donuts). Our whole Maintenance team, and many of our custodial staff have also joined in efforts to work on this, even on weekends, at times.
We are so blessed to have such excellent student workers, and they have been a critical part of this clean-up effort! Every one of them has a very strong work ethic, great attitude, and are just an absolute joy to work with. These students are:
- Dylan Pool
- Katie Hiller
- Taylor Beasley
- Asia Jackson
- Robert Swoboda
- David Wallberg
- Oai (Bear) Kenelak
- Deswan Wanimbo
- Yuleki Wenda
- Brody Gerig
We are so excited and encouraged to know that these are the caliber of young men and women we are putting into the workforce, because I know the difference they will make for Jesus Christ!
Thankfully, we did not have any major injuries during the storm. It was intense hearing and seeing large limbs and trees falling around campus the night of the storm, but God once again protected our Corban community, and has brought us through another major event in our history. We have a lot to be thankful for!
