Update #03 - Saturday, March 03, 2007
Americus, GA
840.76 miles (1345.22 kms) since Jan 01st

In a couple of hours, I'll be officially starting my 15th missionary bike tour. I have some misgivings on leaving Americus due to the recent events. An F-3 tornado with winds between 136 and 165 mph hit Americus, which has a population of around 17,000, at around 9:10 p.m. Thursday (March 01st). Most of the damage happened about a half mile east of the main part of downtown along U.S. 280 and GA 49. Area affected was three miles long and one mile wide. Two people lost their lives in the storm. The Sumter Regional Hospital suffered extensive damage and quite a few businesses were destroyed including some of the area's fast food restaurants, churches, a grocery store, a shopping center, and the county library. 75 patients from the hospital had to be evacuated to hospitals in outlying counties.

Electricity was out for about thirty hours. I was staying in the extreme southern edge of Americus, which has a population of about 17,000. Yesterday morning, I ventured into the downtown area about a mile and a half from where I was staying to see if there was anything that I could do but everything was covered and they didn't need any volunteers at the time. There were some houses extensively damaged in the part of Americus where I was in but these were damaged by falling pine trees.

It is kind of ironic that I'll be leaving an area that had a tornado to go to one that had some in early February. I made plans to head first down to Central Florida to see if there is anything that I could do with the rebuilding of some of the 2000 homes destroyed along a 70 mile path that started around Lady Lake and ended near the Atlantic Ocean. Also, I'm going back down to Arcadia and Wauchuala (near Tampa) where Hurricanes Charley and Francis hit in 2005. I was actually in Arcadia during Hurricane Francis. I was one of the volunteers who stayed at the United Methodist Church who helped out the 100 plus people that stayed at the church for four days.

From Arcadia, I'll be heading east towards either Ft. Pierce or Stuart, Florida on the Atantic Coast. I'll then be starting my trek up the East Coast. I plan to ride up to Maine and then head west. I'm not sure how far west I'll be getting this year. I have the first 4,000 miles of the trip tentiveley mapped out. I'm looking at possibly be out between 8 and 10 thousand miles this year. I'll try and post an update as often as I can if my plans change. The next update should be posted between March 10th and March 17th.