This weekend Rob and I went to Sipsey, Alabama, a town where the recent tornadoes hit hard. The town is only 3 1/2 miles wide, but half of that is now destroyed. The only words that we could think of to describe the things we saw was 'unbelievable'.
We were split into groups and sent to different 'homes' to help out where we could. Most of what we did was cut up fallen trees and drag branches and debris to the side of the roads where it could be picked up later. We couldn't help clean out houses or do anything with fallen structures until FEMA has a chance to come and assess the damage. But just cleaning up fallen trees and scattered debris alone kept hundreds of people busy all day and into the next.
The man that lived in this house was outside running a chainsaw when the storm hit. He heard a noise louder than the chainsaw, turned around, saw the tornado and ran inside. He squished himself between 2 mattresses, which is probably what saved his life as you can see the house fell in all around him.
Before we began working...
After
There were so many LDS church members that came, along with members of other churches and just good citizens in general that wanted to come and lend a hand.
This house was completely blown off it's foundation and strewn against the side of the hill.
I loved what was written on the side of this trailer!!
Another house with only the foundation left to show that something once stood there.
This house was picked up and dropped on it's side.
The war zone was made evident by the trees that were ripped to shreds and left in haphazard, scattered piles.
This poor family has just pieces of their house left, but obviously nothing salvageable. How do you recover from this? How do people just start over with nothing?
These are the signs on the house. So sad.
And the chimney stands alone.
The remains of a vacuum.
A sofa chair.
Part of our crew surveying this enormous tree that was completely uprooted.
The roof on this house was completely blown away and most of it was found wrapped around trees in their yard. You can see half of their chimney was also found in the yard.
The front porch roof came tumbling down.
Trees, trees, everywhere. I guess you don't realize how many trees are around you until most of them are scattered about on your lawn and sticking out of your house.
What's left of a house. Hard to believe that this can be all that's left of your belongings after the storms come. I kept wondering where the people were that lived in this house. Hopefully somewhere else, safe.
