Nobody hesitated when Cedar Bluffs Principal Kevin Janssen put the word out.

He wasn’t surprised.

A small town and a small school, Cedar Bluffs is like a family, he said, and when one member is in trouble, the rest of the family comes running.

A tornado outbreak last Sunday clobbered homes in several eastern Nebraska communities, including Beaver Crossing, where Cedar Bluffs football coach Mitch Egger and his family live on an acreage.

After the storm, Janssen checked in with the longtime Wildcats coach, and learned that Egger’s home was badly damaged.

Janssen sent a message through the school’s electronic notification system, and before he knew it, he had a small army of Cedar Bluffs people eager to help the coach.

“We had 18 kids and eight adults, including patrons, board members and parents,” Janssen said.

They boarded a school bus on Tuesday and made their way to Beaver Crossing. Some adults rode the bus with the students, and others followed behind. They wanted to go on Monday, but Egger’s insurance company didn’t want the property touched until adjusters could look at it.

After a security briefing in Utica, the caravan made its way to Egger’s house near Beaver Crossing.

“We got off the bus and immediately the kids went to work,” Janssen said. “They didn’t have to be told twice to do anything. They were there to help Coach Egger.”

Some students went into the house to help pack things that could be salvaged.

“The rest of the guys grabbed hammers and chainsaws, and we started tearing apart the garage to get it down because it was too dangerous the way it was. It was either going to end up on the house or it was going to end up in the pasture knocking down a fence for all the cows to get out,” Janssen said.

“Me and Landon (Millie) and the rest of the boys went out into the pasture and carried pieces of the roof from the house,” said student David Zakovec, who as a fire cadet had been storm watching with the Cedar Bluffs Fire Department the night his coach’s house got hit.

Millie said pieces of the roof were 500 to 600 feet from the house.

“It wasn’t a day out of school,” Janssen said. “They still had to make up their work, but they came ready to work.

“It wasn’t just Cedar Bluffs kids,” he said. “They had Centennial High School kids. Coach Egger’s stepson has some friends over there, too.”

A tornado once ripped the porch off Winter Huston’s house, but that was nothing like the destruction she saw in Beaver Crossing.

“Now I know that your house can get blown away. It was shocking to see somebody’s house like that,” the Cedar Bluffs high school student said.

“The roof was torn off, the inside was completely water damaged, the foundation was shifted a couple inches, and the garage was three-quarters knocked down,” Janssen described. “There was a grain bin a quarter of a mile down the road in the middle of the road. The kids were able to see the destruction of what a true tornado can do.”

“It was just mass destruction,” Millie said.

“We saw power lines on the ground and tin wrapped around the top of the tree. It was pretty bad. There was a Corvette that was crushed,” Roman Ptomey added.

“It looked like a junkyard, everything was thrown everywhere,” Bayley Allen said.

The plan was to help the coach and his family, and then do what they could for the neighbors. Coach Egger’s wife, Deena, has family nearby who also got hit.

“Her dad lives right down the road, and our goal was to get Coach Egger’s place cleaned up and then go down to help her dad, but it was so bad the insurance just said don’t touch it, they’re just going to bring in a bulldozer,” Janssen said. “You could tell it was an emotional day for a lot of people involved.

“I was very proud of our kids and their work ethic,” Janssen said. “I gave them maybe a 20-minute lunch, if that. We ate quickly and I said, ‘Let’s go,’ and they didn’t bark once. It was really neat to see all that. I’m proud of our kids for stepping up, and I’m proud of our community for stepping up for Coach Egger as well.”

People who couldn’t go sent donations and supplies. In just 12-hours, $700 was raised for a Visa card the Eggers could use. The school cooks made 80 sack lunches to send along.

“Being part of a small school and a small community like we are, we take pride in we are a family ... and if someone’s in need, we go help,” Janssen said.

For the students, he continued, it was also a valuable life lesson.

“That was huge,” he said. “Being able to help people with natural disasters, or just being able to help people in general, you can teach so much in school but they learned life skills that day. They learned what it was like to see somebody lose almost everything they had, to try to cherish what they have.”

“Him being our football coach,” Ptomey said, “he’s always there for us during the season, so it felt good to be there for him once.”

Janssen said the Eggers are temporarily renting a house in Utica.

“They don’t know if they’re going to be able to move back in, or if they’re just going to total it because of the water damage and the structural damage,” Janssen said.