Community members clean up Rochester after Thursday's storms

ROCHESTER, Ind. -- The clean up from Thursday morning’s devastating storms continues on Friday and in Fulton County, one man is helping neighbors in need.

Fulton County resident, Donald Bradley, is traveling around Rochester and picking up branches, chopping trees, anything to help restore the community.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the town this bad,” said Bradley.

Bradley says his mother woke him early Thursday morning.

“My mom woke me up, ‘Hey, it’s destroyed in Rochester,’” said Bradley. “I’m like, okay, she’s probably joking around. It wasn’t a joke.”

Bradley says as he drove into town, he came across and cleared trees from two county roads.

ABC57 met him as he prepared to chop up a massive tree that fell and was inches away from destroying his uncle’s apartment.

“I want people to be safe,” said Bradley. “I don’t want them to feel like, ‘Hey I can’t do things because I got these trees in my way, I got leaves in my way,’ I want them to be able to go about their business throughout the day and not worry about these things.”

Bradley plans to clean up over the next few days, even weeks.

“It’s not like we’re going to get over it overnight, but we’re going to get done, and I’m going to try my best to stay out all night and make sure these trees are out of the way, so people can get to where they need to be because most importantly, it’s important for them to be able to go about their business throughout the day,” said Bradley.

As an Indiana Guard reservist, Bradley says the idea of helping is engrained in his brain.

“Something that I’ve learned is to be a community based volunteer and always help out when people need it,” said Bradley. “Right now they need that help so that’s why I’m here to help.”

Bradley hopes the community is able to move forward from Thursday’s storms.

“It’s just a big community, you know, we’re always willing to go out for people and always willing to help,” said Bradley. “I think that most importantly, I think that you have to, you have to really just hope for a better tomorrow because today is not a good day.”