Trees are beautiful, life giving structures. Their leaves provide us clean air, shade in the summertime, a beautiful display of colors in the fall, as well as provide us with innumerable products we use everyday. However, when they are laying in the middle of your living room or have fallen down all over your property ruining fences and killing livestock, they somehow lose their luster. The tornado and storm that went through my hometown of Vilonia Monday night seems to have left more trees on their sides and on houses than standing. This is just a portion of the destruction the people of Vilonia woke up to face early Tuesday morning.
As most of you may know a tornado hit my hometown of Vilonia, Arkansas the night of April 25, 2011. Several members of my family live in Vilonia; my parents, sister, paternal grandparents and great-grandmother, my mom's sister and her two children, and my dad's brother and wife. I live about 10 miles out of Vilonia now. The night the storm hit I was terrified for my family. I knew it was headed their way and I knew it may be bad. I never in my wildest dreams expected to see the level devastation this storm caused. After I found out that night that all my family was safe from harm but there was some pretty bad damage I went to bed with my heart heavy. I wasn't until the following morning that I heard more of an account of what really happened.
The first person I was able to talk to was my dad. My "always has a plan, calm and collected" dad. He told me he was busy cutting some of the cows out from under trees. I could hear the urgency in his voice and it scared me. Then I talked to other members of family and followed Facebook like I would die if I didn't look at least every 15 minutes. I spent an incredible stressful 7 hours at work. The pain of not being there with my family was almost unbearable.
It wasn't until I actually drove into town that I truly realized the magnitude of what had happened there. My grandparent's house was the first place of note that I saw and there was the big beautiful tree in their front, side yard blown over onto their front porch (along with many other trees stripped or uprooted). Then going down my parent's street I could see the nice subdivision Quail Hollow on the left side with tarps on all the roofs, windows blown out, fences gone or laying scattered in pieces with people everywhere, exhausted. The light poles were leaning over the road with some sheared in half and standing in the road. Then my parent's/grandparent's pasture on the right with countless trees blown over, their roots sticking up in the air several feet high. My mom and dad's house is surrounded by trees, many of which were laying on their sides. It was but for the grace of God that none of them hit their house. Huge trees were just uprooted with debris everywhere. When I parked my car and got out, I made a bee-line for my momma, hugged her, and cried tears of grief for our town and relief for their safety. My Aunt and Uncle's house back across the road at the end of the subdivision was missing a large section of roof over the kitchen and living room. They were also minus a nice shop on the side of their house.
Eventually after some work moving limbs into large piles in my parent's yard, mom and I went for a drive down main street. It was indescribable. There were more trees down everywhere, roofs missing, whole houses missing. The landscape is traumatic to look at. My heart aches for the town and its' people. There was also a subdivision with several mobile homes that was flattened by the storm/tornado. Vilonia will never be the same.
The good news is this... The outpouring of love and support from the community is wonderful. There have been many, many people coming out to help clear trees and debris. My great-grandmother's house sits right off of main street. It is surrounded by fallen trees to the point you could barely see it. She also had a tipped over semi truck in her yard. At the bequest of its' driver people were busy gathering the dry food goods that were packaged well and had spilled out. There were several strangers that just stopped to help and worked hard to start cleaning up her yard. As I had mentioned to some of family, if the storm had to happen somewhere, at least it happened to an area filled with people who love and support their town; people who will pitch in and help each other get this cleaned up and fixed.
We have a very long way to go rebuilding, but there is always hope. I have faith that God will see us through. I am praying for the strength of the people of Vilonia and for them to be provided with the donations needed to survive the coming weeks and months. Power is still out to a majority of the city and there is no telling when it will be restored. If you would like to volunteer to clean up or help rebuild my hometown or have anything at all you would like to donate please let me know and I will get you some information!
Click here for YouTube Video of some of the damage. My great grandmother's house is just after the truck, before the cereal.
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