Carmelite Sister Cleans up after Irma with a Chainsaw

In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Carmelite Sister Margaret Ann Laechelin pitched in with a chainsaw to help clear a blocked road.

Sister Laechelin saw a motorist struggling to navigate a road obstructed by a fallen tree and worried for the safety of others.

“The road was blocked and we couldn’t get through, and I saw somebody spin in the mud and almost go into a wall and off the road, and so there was a need, I had the means, I wanted to help out,” Sister Laechelin explained to CNN as a video played in the background showing her, wearing the Carmelites’ brown tunic, chopping apart a tree with chainsaw.

Police Department Posted Video in Thanks

Florida’s Miami-Dade Police Department had tweeted the video earlier that day, thanking her – and other Floridians – for helping with cleanup efforts. During her CNN interview, Sister Laechelin said alumni from Archbishop Coleman F. Carroll High School in Miami, where she is the principal, saw her efforts and arrived to help.

Sister Laechelin, of the Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart, told CNN that the school had chainsaws stored in a closet and, given the circumstances of the destruction, she put them to use.

“They needed to be used,” she said, during her prime-time cable news interview. “We teach our students, ‘Do what you can to help,’ and so this was an opportunity where I could do something to help and, thanks be to God, I was able to do it.”

The video sent Twitter into a storm of its own about the “chainsaw-wielding nun” cleaning up after Hurricane Irma. Some said she was a symbol of grit, resilience and community spirit.

A Song Written About the Nun

Country music singer Dylan Schneider, inspired by “Sister Margaret Ann,” belted out lyrics later posted via video on Twitter, and composed some lines about her can-do spirit.

She was just trying to clean up the road, she said, but also putting action behind what she often tells students:   “Do what you can for other people, don’t think of yourselves. And so, that’s what I wanted to do. It’s part of who we are, it’s what we do,” she said.

“People are making a big deal about the chainsaw, but I’ve already given my life to God and that’s what brings true joy,” not the fame that came after the airing of the video, said Sister Laechelin.

Learning “Chainsaw” From YouTube

Though you wouldn’t know it from the video, she had never really used a chainsaw before, but when she was faced with finding a way to clear the tree, she remembered some important advice from her students.

“I had to go on YouTube” to figure it out, she said, “but growing up in Texas, I did a lot of yardwork and my dad taught me to figure things out.”

Her family in Texas, however, was in “awe” when they saw her on TV, she said, and told her “I always thought you’d be famous, but not because of a chainsaw.”

By Rhina Guidos Catholic News Service