BEMIDJI — From hurricanes, tornadoes and floods, to earthquakes, wildfires and severe wind storms, disaster strikes every corner of the United States with consistency each year.
Every recovery effort is unique, but most are arduous, requiring outside help.
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a veteran-led nonprofit organization, is often one of the first outside responders to such events, offering immediate humanitarian aid to communities in need. Team Rubicon's reach has even stretched to Bemidji, which is now healing from a storm that ravaged the area on June 21.

Four Team Rubicon strike teams, composed of sawyers — woodcutters — descended upon Bemidji on July 2 to begin assisting in the cleanup process. Working alongside the the four teams began offering free assistance to various homeowners in need.
"The CDC has what they call the and the people that are higher on that index are least likely to recover," explained Jim Herrel, Team Rubicon Incident Coordinator and veteran. "They don't have insurance, they don't have the cash or money to be able to pay people to do this stuff. We look for high SVI and then we prioritize the jobs: disabled people, elderly people, people with children that are under 18."
Herrel joined the Bemidji strike teams on July 7, which happened to be his second anniversary with the organization. He has around 60 Team Rubicon deployments under his belt, many of which are much closer to home — Atlanta — assisting with hurricane relief.
When he entered Bemidji, he immediately drew parallels.
"My first impression when I got here was this looked like a hurricane," Herrel recalled. "(Our system) said 'tornado in Bemidji.' This was straight line winds and huge, and it reminded me of the damage we saw in south Georgia, South Carolina, from (Hurricane) Helen; wherever you go, there's just fields of trees just down. It's been blown over."

Herrel was impressed with the work that had already been done.
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"I am so impressed with the resiliency of this community," he remarked. "There's so much work that's already been done. You see it as you drive. People of northern Minnesota are hardy people. Anybody lives up here in winter is a hardy person."
Herrel travels to each job site to ensure the cleanup operation is running smoothly as an incident coordinator. He initially joined the Bemidji teams as a sawyer but switched when reinforcements arrived.
He still helps as a sawyer every so often and believes the team functions best without a rigid power structure.
"When we're out here, we're just Team Rubicon," he said. "We're one team. We aren't rank-oriented. We follow all the FEMA guidelines, but we're just out here as a team. It doesn't matter what you were or who you were, you're all out here together to get a job done."
Since arriving, the strike teams have kept a steady pace, with varying project scopes and results.
A day in the life
The Pioneer briefly followed Team Rubicon on Thursday to detail a typical day of work for a team.

The team began its day at a home near Lake Irvine to trim downed trees. The team hauled the debris and stacked it neatly next to the road before traveling to a second location, which featured a fallen tree that was partially on top of a roof.
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Two sawyers with higher clearance climbed onto the homeowner's roof and began chopping down the tree before sliding portions back to the ground. Sawyers on the ground hauled the debris back to the curb.
Sawyers then checked the roof for damage, noticed a breach and partially filled it, giving the homeowner time to plan for extensive repairs. They then began cleaning off the roof before packing up their things and heading to the next location.
This small sample represents a typical day for the strike teams in Bemidji. In one day, the teams could work 10 hours, complete around 30 projects and clear an estimated 53,000 cubic feet of debris.
And this work is nothing new for Team Rubicon.
Since being established in 2010, Team Rubicon has continually ramped up its humanitarian efforts and now features over 180,000 Greyshirts — Team Rubicon volunteers named after their attire — from all across the country. In 2024, it served in 600 operations with an additional 600 service operations for over 1,200 deployments.

Greyshirts are made up mostly of retired veterans. Herrel joked that he and many other Greyshirts exist on "permanent pay time" and are able to deploy immediately as a result. They are eventually joined by a rotation of younger Greyshirts who must use paid time off in order to serve.
Greyshirts are not compensated; however, Herrel feels their efforts are still very rewarding.
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"The only pay we get is when somebody hugs us and that's the best pay you're ever going to get," Herrel said. "(This work) really gives you a life purpose. It shows you the uncut realism of what is humanity, and it's amazing."
The crew will leave Bemidji on July 15. But before their exit, Team Rubicon will work with another nonprofit to help clean up a cemetery that saw extensive damage. This project will take place on Monday, July 14, and will serve as Team Rubicon's final commitment to the community.
Then, it's off to the next natural disaster.
Fine detail
Team Rubicon employs operation associates who track natural disasters. When one surfaces, operation associates file an incident situation report to determine how bad the disaster is. A recon team then travels to the area for further analysis.
This helps establish a plan to help the community. If Team Rubicon can assist, then it will ask its wide network of volunteers to optionally deploy.
This same process took place before the strike teams entered Bemidji.
All of Team Rubicon's work is done free of charge. This is because of generous donations made from around the country, including notable figures such as Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur M. Blank, alongside help from Ford in providing rental vehicles.
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When Team Rubicon exits a location, it can file how many hours of volunteer work it has lent to an area. The more volunteer hours, the more the state pays toward the recovery effort.

"It's kind of like going to the doctor," Herrel explained. "(The state) pays so much and you have a deductible. Our (work) offsets the deductible. (The state) will contribute more money to the community based on the community volunteer hours that we put in. This is my understanding from one of the emergency managers."
And with a large network of Greyshirts who are qualified to handle a multitude of issues, Team Rubicon has no limitations on where it travels to serve. Often, Greyshirts serve alongside a diversity of new faces.
For instance, one of the strike teams in Bemidji consisted of two people from Georgia, one from Iowa, one from Oregon, one from Michigan and another from Massachusetts.
Each has a wholly unique story on how they joined the organization.
For Herrel, it was catching the Team Rubicon show on Roku TV by happenstance, which immediately sparked his interest.
"(The show has) these guys charging in to take care of stuff, and I went, 'That is cool, that is me,'" Herrel recalled. "By the time the first one was over, I was on my laptop signing up."
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Herrel noted the significance of providing relief to communities around the country with Team Rubicon.
"When you work with a group of people like we work with, and you do the work that we do, it becomes addictive, because it's very purposeful. It's very service-oriented," he said. "I jumped in and been in with both feet ever since ... We make significant differences. We come in on a person's worst day or the worst thing that's happened to them, and where there's darkness, we bring light and we bring hope."