On a windswept hillside in eastern Alabama, white crosses glimmer in the morning sun. Birds twitter in the nearby trees and a fine coating of dew sparkles on the grass like jewels. Angels’ tears, older Southerners call it. On this morning, in this place, no one would be inclined to disagree.
The post office is gone. The school is gone. City Hall is gone. Most of the churches are gone. Nearly every building in Smithville, Mississippi is gone — or so heavily damaged they will have to be demolished. The devastation from last week’s F5 tornado is so widespread, so absolute, that it’s easier to tally what remains: The telephone company. Coker’s Han-D-Mart. And an unshakeable sense of faith.
Kelly Taylor-Forgar, emergency services director of the Central Louisiana chapter of the Red Cross hopes she never again experiences what she went through Monday night. Red Cross volunteers reported 42 families affected and four homes destroyed in La Salle and Rapides parishes. Meanwhile, their colleagues found themselves in need of assistance as well when high winds slammed trees into their office and tore away part of the roof. Taylor-Forgar, who was in the building at the time, said even though she grew up in Texas and spends her days assisting families touched by natural disasters, it was frightening to witness a storm in progress.
“I call him ‘Super Spann’ because he does his best to protect us,” says Olympia Hewitt, a Tuscaloosa County resident who watched in horror Dec. 6, 2000, as Spann stood on-screen – sleeves rolled up, wearing his ever-present suspenders – and warned residents of Bear Creek Trailer Park to seek shelter from a tornado. Eleven people died that day, but residents believe the toll would have been higher without his coverage. “He talks like he’s right there,” Ms. Hewitt adds, “telling you what’s happening.”
For a moment, Dockery seems bowed by the sheer enormity, then he squares his shoulders and a faint smile lights his eyes. There were no deaths, and that’s something. A thousand people volunteered to help the very next day, and that’s something, too. Union will rebuild what was destroyed and resume the master plan, more slowly perhaps, but always, always moving forward. “I don’t think we’ve lost hope, and I don’t think we’re Pollyannaish,” he says. “Our deep faith will carry us through.”
