Disaster Nonprofit Expecting A Larger Workload In 2025

A nearly record-breaking year for tornadoes in Oklahoma has disaster nonprofits poised to help, with an expected jump in needed donations in 2025.

Recovering Oklahomans After Disaster (ROAD) is part of the Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster coalition, and partners with Catholic Charities to pinpoint individual homeowners in need. The group provides free home repair services after a disaster.

Chad Detwiler, who manages the organization, said volunteer organizations work disasters all across the state but fill a specific gap for disasters that don't meet the threshold for federal assistance.

"The resources that we have available are more pressing for the non-declared disasters," he said.

Right now, his group is working on 21 different projects dating back to storms in May of 2022. In August of this year, he finished a project for Ramona Tainpeah.

Tainpeah's home of 26 years narrowly missed the worst of the April 2023 Shawnee tornado by only a few houses.

But the storm still shot debris through the front window of her house and crumpled up a portion of her garage and front door. She was denied FEMA assistance but instead received help from ROAD. 

"I was just thankful that they were there for me," she said. "And, for anybody that comes in and helps, people should not be proud and take it."

2024 was a historic year for severe weather in Oklahoma, with the total number of confirmed tornadoes one shy of breaking the all-time record in a given year for the state.

Two EF-4s struck parts of the state for the first time in 8 years.

Those are all factors, Detwiler says, which will elevate a need for volunteers and donations in the new year.

"We're looking for help in all different ways," he said. "That's the resources, time for volunteering, or their resources of product. We have a need for tools. We have a need for building materials. We'll take gifts in kind that way as well. It's just whatever their heart feels that they're being led to give."

Information about ROAD can be found on their website, and information about other disaster nonprofits in Oklahoma can be found here.