Tiffany Hovde Tipping, a 1991 Minot High School graduate now living in Florida, was devastated to hear the news of the 2011 flood. Her brother Travis is the pastor at Eagles Wings Community Church, Minot, which was badly damaged in the flood.
Tipping said she truly saw the devastation of the flood when she came to Minot for a mission trip with her church in September and has since written and recorded a song about the flood.
"It had been three months since the flood, but (Minot) still looked like a war zone. I couldn't believe it. My brother Josh and his family packed up and moved to Minnesota. My aunts were living in campers in their driveway. It was such a mess and many people still had no power. When Hurricane Wilma hit us in Florida several years ago, we had no power for 11 days. Talk about putting that into perspective," said Tipping.
Even though the team of 20 people worked hard on different homes and churches for a week, Tipping said they felt like they barely made a dent. She was so inspired by what she'd seen that she decided to write lyrics for a song called "The Magic City," then emailed them to her friend Jen Perez, who is a piano player, and within a few hours the chorus was done. The song was finished in a couple of days and Tipping, who also sang the song, decided to put it on iTunes and try to raise money for flood victims.
Both Tipping and Perez have been involved in bands in South Florida. Tipping said they were able to find some amazing musicians to record with them, including the Ebenezer Baptist Choir. She said it took a few months for all of the musicians and choir to finish recording, but it was worth the wait. The song "The Magic City" will be available on (www.cdbaby.com) until it comes out on iTunes.