After a thunderstorm caused excessive damage to Ralls on Friday, the community came together to rebuild the community.
“I think the major damage was windows. I know that’s what we sustained here at the church,” said TJ Messer, the pastor for Ralls First Baptist Church.
The church was approximately 75 percent damaged on the North side of the building, which required boards and duct tape to cover until they complete repairs, according to Messer.
After repairing the church’s damages, Messer, along with a pastor from Idalou drove through the city to survey damage and assist anyone who needed help.
“It was just amazing to see neighbor helping neighbor,” he said.
The church is giving away extra plywood for any citizen that still needs to cover damages, said Messer.
In addition to offering supplies, the local youth pastor decided to keep the youth mission trip in their own city.
“Instead of sending people out on a mission trip, he’s wanting to send them to just here in Ralls to try to get people that need help,” he said.
Billy Tidwell, the Ralls fire chief and Crosby County emergency coordinator said he will coordinate a plan with city officials to repair damages.
“We do a lot of fundraisers, a lot of donations and we try to stock up on stuff,” he said.
However, he said it will take time and a lot of money to repair.
“We are a volunteer organization. All these cities, we don’t have as nearly as big a tax base as these big cities like Lubbock, Amarillo, and Dallas. So we just have to figure it out and do what we can do,” he said.
While officials worked diligently to restore order to the city and reopen roads, communities helped in any way they could.
“The good thing about being local… nobody asked questions. Take what you need, whatever it is, ice, water,” he said.
In order to prepare for future disasters, he said officials will come together to review their response to this one.
“We look over what we did to see what things we can approve upon and what we did good at and always try to plan. We hope it never happens to us but we try to be prepared if it does,” he said.
