The Tornado
of May 3rd

© copyright May 4th, 1999 by Lin Stone

The Recent Tornado:  I've been through tornadoes before.  They leaped tall buildings, left little trees, shifted one house on its foundation and shattered the one beside it with little rhyme or reason.   This tornado was bent on laying down a track of solid destruction I could almost lay a plumb to.  From one step to the next destruction began.  Then the damage goes on and on until suddenly there is a line beyond which nothing is touched.  Between those two lines, leaves were gone from the trees, the bark was stripped too.  Then the trees were shattered.  In many places the very grass was ripped from the ground.   Trailer house tongues might be found in the top of trees, and the rest of it gone.

A crew of 8 that I was working with yesterday put in 3 hours clearing away a large brush heap, only to discover a house had once set on that precise spot. There was a surprising lack of dead or injured animals in the vicinity.  One house cat was found under three feet of debris, still alive.  A second one was found lower than that.  Meows from the third one could be heard occasionally, but never often enough to determine where to dig for it.   The worst smell I came afoul of was from a deep freeze which could not be closed.   Open sewers only smell bad if you are right on top of them.

Volunteers have come from everywhere.  People see damage like this and drive a thousand miles to lend a helping hand.  Others within a thousand feet have gone on with their recreations as if nothing at all had happened; they can't be bothered with helping their neighbors because it is Ski-Doo time.  The police I saw were so busy gawking they couldn't even help busloads of volunteers get out onto the highway. 

Gawking is about all you can see to do when damage is this bad.  Everything you pick up seems to be tainted with filth.  Brand new riding mowers have been turned into useless heaps of twisted junk, the very air sucked out of the tires.

The big helpers were the larger and more organized churches and the Red Cross.  The Pentecostal Church was serving hot meals there inside of hours.  AT&T and other large Corporations had brand new tools delivered for use of volunteers inside of hours.  They furnished gloves, hammers, crow bars, chain saws, wrecking bars, axes, goggles and about anything else you could think of, all new -- brand spanking top-of-the-line new!