SMITHVILLE —
Smithville isn”t flattened. It”s hilly.
One week after being assaulted by an EF-5 tornado that left 16 residents dead as of Wednesday, the landscape of the Monroe County town is studded with piles of rubble and debris which have been gathered, swept and bulldozed together. Concrete foundations support the same materials which once formed houses and buildings, rearranged in mangled heaps. The trunks and exposed roots of former shade trees lie next to piles of limbs, diced by chainsaws and tossed to the side of the road for eventual collection.
More than 1,500 volunteers have descended upon Smithville since Saturday, helping residents build fresh mounds from the remains of their broken town. Starkville added 22 volunteers to that list Wednesday as a small convoy of vehicles organized by the Oktibbeha Starkville Emergency Response Volunteer Service rolled in with chain saws, rakes and plenty of fresh hands.
Byron Wilkes, son of OSERVS Director Becky Wilkes and a graduate student in California, has dealt with tornadoes before. As a journalist, he covered damaging storms in Murfreesboro, Tenn., but admitted he had never seen destruction comparable to Smithville.
“It”s a total war zone. I don”t know where they would even start to rebuild,” he said.
And they may not.
Rumors and reports have swirled for the past few days that the federal and Mississippi emergency management agencies will bulldoze the hardest hit areas of town and help residents start over from the ground up.
But even that can”t happen until the trees are chopped.
After splitting into two teams, one OSERVS group, aided by several locals, went to work on felled trees in the front and back yards of Minister Sammy Washburn”s house on L & S Circle. The crew of approximately 15, operating with just one chain saw, cleared all but the thickest pieces of trunk from the tree in the front yard in approximately three hours. Another one and a half hours of work after lunch, with the aid of an additional chain saw, saw half of the tree in the back cleared away.
That”s a half-day”s work by 15 people with two chain saws to clear one and a half medium-sized oak trees. And there are hundreds of trees on the ground in Smithville, some with limbs stretching 30 feet in the air despite laying on their sides.
OSERVS Board Chair Carol Moss Read, who worked with a group clearing trees on Seminole Road Wednesday, said Oktibbeha and Starkville will maintain a presence in Smithville, and Mathiston, until the work is done.
“We”ve already got enough of a crew to come back another time. We just want to find out when and where is best to come back. We will send crews and supplies up here as long as they need help,” she said.
Washburn is one of many Smithville residents to benefit from the assistance of strangers like the OSERVS volunteers.
“I appreciate them so much. All the volunteers have meant so much to us. They”re a true blessing,” he said. “Thank y”all so much for coming and helping us when we”re down.”
And Washburn was actually one of the lucky ones. The Mooreville United Methodist preacher was in Mooreville when the storm hit, and the falling trees missed his house, although they did take out his workshop and his sailboat. An insurance adjuster inspected his property Wednesday as the OSERVS crew worked, hours before Washburn was due to conduct a funeral for his close friend who owned the Smithville Marina and perished in the storm.
Washburn”s neighbor, Jackie Seals, also saw his backyard workshop shredded by the storm. He was standing in his carport talking to his son in Wren, where the storm had just hit, on the phone as the ceiling of black clouds began to descend on Smithville.
Convinced the storm would miss Smithville, Seals walked inside and, moments after he shut his kitchen door, windows began to break as the wind battered the house.
“I made it to the hallway, but by the time I got to the hallway, like that, it was over, that quick,” he said. “I really didn”t have time to think. I didn”t have time to get scared.”
Down the street, at the corner of L & S Circle and Highway 25, Dwayne Pearce”s wife, stepson, a friend and an exchange student staying with the family all huddled in the hallway. His wife was struck in the head and back by debris, but an MRI showed no serious damage.
Pearce was awaiting an engineer to visit his home Wednesday and determine if the structure was safe to inhabit.
“I don”t want to live in a house that”s been through a tornado and is that much tore down. But I”m not going to move. I”ll rebuild right here,” he said.
Resilience was a recurring theme among Smithville residents, and it made an impression on the OSERVS volunteers.
“Seeing the hurt in people”s eyes that you”re helping and the thankfulness they have for you helping them, it”s humbling,” said Braxton Stowe, a former linebacker at Mississippi State University. “It”s a humbling experience just being here. Pictures on Facebook and TV don”t do it justice. They need people to come help.”
Signs of resolve and perspective are littered throughout Smithville. American flags fly above devastated lots. A sign hung on one abandoned building reads “The Lord giveth. The Lord hath taken away.”
Resident John Barrett exhibited the typical silver-lining mentality.
“It could have been worse,” he said.
Whether through the Mississippi Department of Transportation, the Highway Patrol, the National Guard, MEMA, the Red Cross or any of the various relief services on the ground in Smithville, the support is evident. There are even volunteers serving volunteers at a church where a dining tent has been erected in the parking lot. Volunteers pass out plate lunches, complete with desserts, to workers. A 20-yard stretch of coolers hold cold drinks and a small mountain of cases of bottled water sit beside the barbecue grills and smokers.
Many of the OSERVS volunteers wanted to be a part of that community atmosphere.
“I didn”t know what to expect, so that made me nervous coming in,” said Elizabeth Dubois, chief coordinator for VolunteerStarkville.org, a nonprofit database. “But I”m glad I got to come help because if it wasn”t for volunteers this would take a long time to clean up. I love working outside and I know from personal experience from Hurricane Katrina that it goes a long way in these people”s eyes. And from the look of things there”s still a lot of people that need help.”
Emily Moncrief, a junior communication studies major from Ackerman, said the feeling of seeing progress, even if only a little, was worth the time spent.
“It”s really neat to go into a yard and see a tree completely covering it and walk away knowing that person has a yard again. It needed to be done,” she said.
How to help
· Anyone interested in volunteering in Monroe or Webster counties can contact OSERVS at 662-384-2200 or online at oservs.com. OSERVS will also hold a pancake breakfast Saturday morning at Applebee”s in Starkville to raise money.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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