In early July, Hurricane Beryl created a path of destruction from the South Caribbean, through Mexico and into the United States. A rescue team from Ardmore was on the scene from the very beginning.

The Gideon Rescue Company was founded in 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti to do disaster relief. Member Brock Mayer explained what they do.

“We do a lot stateside: hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods,” he said. “We also do lots overseas like earthquakes, and we’ve recently added conflict zones including Ukraine and Gaza.

“We focus on being the first in to get there at a critical time when resources are critically needed. And we have skills to offer whether it be medical, search and rescue, or canines.”

Throughout all of the places Gideon has been over the years, Mayer said the thing people really need is hope.

“The biggest thing we’ve actually seen after almost 15 years of doing this is people need hope,” Mayer said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to hope. The world is not becoming an easier place as we march forward in time. So many people are living in adverse situations already, and then that’s compounded by disasters.

“We have seen how God has provided and taken care of our team, and we want to open those doors to other people.”

When going to any disaster scene, Gideon typically does not have a firm plan on where exactly they will end up. That’s certainly the case this time, when they ended up on the tiny Union Island located in the island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The original plan was to try to be in Jamaica before the storm struck. Jamaica was initially forecast to be the first major location for landfall, but the storm had other plans.

The group ended up stranded in Puerto Rico.

“We had received a tip that there were some contacts that we could hook up with in Puerto Rico, and that was kind of an easy destination for us because it’s a U.S. territory,” said Gideon Rescue Company Team Member Dylan McWilliams. “Those contacts didn’t work out, so we got kind of stuck there because all the air traffic was U.S. bound and nothing was going south towards the destruction.”

They tried multiple avenues to get off the island, but nothing was working out until a chance meeting in the airport.

“While we were there in a small airport in Puerto Rico we ended up meeting a lady and had a two-minute conversation,” McWilliams said. “We told her we were trying to get to the little islands in the south.

“She texted us about 15 minutes later and said she felt like we needed to be down there. She told us that if we could find a charter, she’d pay for it.”

They ended up managing to get a charter flight to St. Vincent which is the closest island to Union Island. From there they got another flight onto Union.

The island is located about 100 miles north of Venezuela. It has approximately 3,000 residents.

“It was a surreal moment because as we were flying in, we could see that about 90% of the structures had been damaged,” Mayer said. “All their roofs were gone. None of the houses were inhabitable, maybe a few. All infrastructure was basically gone.”

As soon as they got off the plane a woman came to them for help.

“Right when we stepped off the plane this woman collapsed in our arms bawling,” Mayer said. “She told us a story of how she survived the storm. The walls collapsed in on her. She was in up to chest-deep water. One of her friends died after being cut with a large piece of galvanized metal.

“What do you do? We hugged her and prayed with her. We told her God spared your life for a reason, and that’s an important first step. So, we ended up putting her on the plane and evacuating her out.”

He said everyone they talked to had a miraculous survival story. As bad as the damage was, the island suffered only six deaths.

“Everybody had a story,” Mayer said. “As you went through the island you hear all of these mind-blowing stories of survival. One guy was literally in his house and his whole wall collapsed. The only reason he survived was there was a glass door. When the wall came down, he went through the glass door. He got cut up by the glass, but not squashed by walls. Then he got sucked out into the storm, and rode it out in the open.

“There was a three-month-old baby that got sucked out of his house, but the parents were able to grab him by his leg and hold on. He was fine.”

He said everyone credited God with their survival.

Editors note: This is part one of a two-part story. Wednesday’s edition will include more rescue stories including how the French Navy reached out to Gideon and the miraculous delivery of a boat full of ice.