KETCHIKAN, Alaska (BP) — It was around 4 p.m. on Sunday when Alan McElroy, pastor of White Cliff Church, had sat down with a cup of coffee at home. Then the power went out.

“I looked at the street and the power pole in front is just bent over and then whipped back like a fishing rod,” he said. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s not good’ and threw on my rubber boots and old Army jacket. Then I told my wife I bet someone had run into a power pole and I was going to see if they needed help.”

It was more than that. After 100 feet he saw more power poles in the street — “broken off, snapped like twigs,” he said. People came out of their homes and told him to be careful. The area had experienced heavy rain, and a few steps later he noticed diesel fuel mixed in the water running through the street.

A deadly mudslide had occurred in the town of 8,000 that “critically damaged” four homes and led to the evacuation of approximately 60 other homes, the city of Ketchikan announced on Aug. 26.

The slide killed 42-year-old Ketchikan native Sean Griffin, a husband and father who worked on the city’s public works team. Griffin had been scheduled to be off that day, but heavy rains required additional help in clearing stormwater drains. Three people were injured and hospitalized after the landslide, said public information officer Kacie Paxton.

McElroy was one of the first on the scene.

“Nobody was out there yet so I started hollering if anyone could hear me. Somebody hollered back and said they needed help,” he said.

Cutting through some bushes with a shovel he found, McElroy saw a man standing on what used to be his house. He was five feet above the water rushing below, standing in now-soaked socks and saying he had a dislocated arm.

“I was able to help him down. He said his partner was still in the house, so I waited until firefighters arrived to help him out,” McElroy said. “They had to cut him out of the house with a chainsaw.”

He asked the fire chief if it would be helpful for White Cliff to open its doors to evacuees.

“He said that would be great, so we did that. My phone was wet and of no use, but suddenly church members started showing up and asking how they could help,” McElroy said. “They started handing out bottles of water, grabbing blankets out of the attic so people could wrap up and getting candles because the power was out.”

One church member had a particularly tough time hearing of Griffin’s death, McElroy said, as they both worked in the same city department.

Evacuees were eventually moved later in the evening to Ketchikan High School, which still had power. Send Relief has provided Walmart gift cards that McElroy and others from White Cliff passed out to evacuees who lost items.

“People have been very thankful for the help from our church and the Send Relief cards,” McElroy said.

His home was in the evacuation zone, so McElroy and his family stayed with a church member that night. They have since been allowed back home, though residents two houses down are still in the evacuation zone. The street in front also needs to remain clear for first responder vehicles.

It remains up in the air if a Wednesday night Bible study will take place. Although White Cliff’s building wasn’t damaged, the streets around it have been marked off for emergency vehicles. Should that remain the case on Sunday, plans are being made to meet that afternoon in a sister church’s building.

McElroy has no plans to change his sermon for Sunday, but there could be some alterations.

“I’m one of those sequential expositors, so we’re going to remain in Genesis 24,” he said. “But I may highlight the sovereignty of God. All things are in God’s hands.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Scott Barkley is chief national correspondent for Baptist Press.)