Jake Rowley was one of thousands of Marshalltown residents who watched helplessly as an EF-3 tornado tore through the northern part of the city on July 19, 2018 – it was a moment that would prove pivotal in his life.

He was at U.S. Cellular near the corner of South Center Street and Anson Street. After seeing the storm start to hit town from the west, Rowley and others took shelter inside the store. Five minutes later, Rowley was on the road to the downtown area even as the tornado was tearing up Lennox.

“I came up Center Street and I basically just parked on one of the sidewalks, like in front of Pentz Appliance,” he said. The dust from the partially collapsed buildings and broken storefronts was just beginning to settle.

As with many others in the storm’s path, Rowley was in awe of the damage that had been done in just a few minutes. That evening he helped clean up and clear off parts of sidewalks and streets as much as he could, but the curfew and high amount of emergency work being done limited his volunteer efforts.

T-R PHOTO BY EMILY BLOBAUM - Dream Team leader Jake Rowley looks at houses on Bromley Street that he helped clean following the tornado.

Rowley would be back, though, and he would help oversee one of the most cohesive, local volunteer units borne out of the storm’s destruction. That group would later become known as the Dream Team.

“The next morning, we got up and we grabbed saws and stuff and went down State Street and started just helping anyone we could with the saws,” he said.

The creation of the Marshalltown Tornado Recovery Facebook page kicked the volunteer effort into high gear.

“That really started to help organize things for us,” Rowley said. “I was probably on day five when I met MiKeall Roberts. At that point, I kind of had a team assembled of guys and he kind of had a team assembled of guys, and we ended up just working together.”

Eventually, the teams started a Facebook Messenger group. When a member asked what the group should be called, Rowley said he suggested the “Dream Team,” and the name stuck.

T-R PHOTO BY EMILY BLOBAUM - From left, Dream Team volunteers Allan Illum, Jake Rowley, Sam Keigly and Bill Channell pose next to an uprooted tree on Bromley Street. The Dream Team rallied to help victims immediately following the tornado.

It didn’t take long for a work routine to develop.

Rowley said Roberts would go out early in the morning to check out what work needed done, aided by reports from the Tornado Recovery Page and other requests. The group then decided which projects they were capable of doing.

“One thing we’d run into was a lot of the stuff, by the time we would get done with something and get over there, somebody might have already helped and done it,” Rowley said.

The work involved everything from taking down hundreds of trees to bringing more than 250 loads to both the Marshall County Landfill and Marshalltown Compost Facility. Rowley said the group’s work wouldn’t have been possible without tremendous community support.

“It wasn’t really that expensive to operate, really nothing but fuel,” he said. “Somehow, some way every single day somebody would offer to feed us or take us to a grill out or whatever. It was a collaborative effort between a lot of different community members.”

He said figures like Roberts, Bobby Shomo, Allan Illum, the administrators of the Tornado Recovery Page, Aly Wenner and a host of others made the Dream Team efforts possible. That included donating time, tools and other resources to the recovery effort.

“It was 31 days that we worked the spectrum of things,” Rowley said. “For 31 days, I never once took a day off.”

Expanding the Dream Team

He said his opportunity and ability to help the community sparked something in his heart.

“Really, I just enjoyed it so much, it didn’t really feel like it was work,” Rowley said.

After doing some paid demolition work around Marshalltown to further help cleanup efforts, Rowley and some Dream Team members also decided in the spring to go to western Iowa and Nebraska to help after the Missouri River flooded and devastated communities. Rowley also went to help after the Linwood, Kan. tornado tore through that community.

“I just really caught a bug for it. I just got back from Missouri. It’s the same water that we dealt with in Nebraska, just coming downstream now,” he said.

He said the Marshalltown tornado, while disastrous and damaging, ultimately gave him a sense of greater purpose. Rowley’s father recently died, and the loss had an impact on him.

“I still, every once in a while, have a hard time with it,” he said. “Before the Nebraska trip, that’s kind of what happened. I was having a rough night with it and I was sitting there, and I was thinking to myself ‘What time in my life was I the happiest? What made me the happiest?’ And it was those 31 days that we worked the relief from the tornado.”

Now, the small business owner is hoping to eventually make a career helping communities recover from disasters. Everywhere he has gone, Rowley has made connections with similar groups, like the Cajun Navy, Samaritan’s Purse, local groups and many others.

“There are so many organizations out there doing amazing things, and I just like working with them,” Rowley said. “I’m actually working on somehow launching a nonprofit where I could do it full time. That’s my goal over the next five years.”

Words from the community

While Rowley emphasized that he did not and could not have done all the volunteer work the Dream Team accomplished on his own, he has been recognized for his volunteerism, work ethic and team-building.

“I’ve never seen someone just jump out of their seats in a moment’s notice and just begin to work. It was like he became obsessed and couldn’t sleep until not one person was left to help in Marshalltown,” said Angela Duffy of Marshalltown. “I tried a few times to actually grasp the amount of work he had done but I don’t think he even realizes the amount of people he helped.”

Marshalltown’s Marcelo Ramirez said the Dream Team did excellent work.

“This team of people hit the ground running the day the tornado came and didn’t stop for weeks,” Ramirez said. “They used their own resources to help clean up this town. They are heroes in my eyes.”

Rowley’s local efforts aren’t the only actions to get positive attention from community members.

“Jake Rowley and his team helped Marshalltown recover by cutting trees and picking up debris and Jake also put a team together to help the (Missouri River) flood victims,” said Anna Wolvers of Marshalltown.

Marshalltown resident Richie Smith said Rowley, Roberts and many others did not hesitate to act and help when they were needed.

“They jumped into action and worked side by side with all the responding emergency action groups and were coordinated and led by Ruth Peterson,” Smith said. “This was a thing of beauty as the Dream Team totally worked from one end of town to the other clearing debris and helping people.”

Rowley is quick to point out everything he did during the tornado recovery was a team effort.

“A lot of people gave me the credit, but it was a group thing,” he said. “I could have never done everything. The impact that we made was not able to be done by one person.”

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