GOOD-NEWS STORY - All's Well That Ends Well

"A Year Later, Gratitude in a Tornado-Torn Town" by SUSAN SAULNY, New York Times 5/5/2011

YAZOO CITY, Miss. — Just over a year ago, when the 170-mile-an-hour winds of a deadly tornado ripped the eastern stretch of this town to shreds, Noreene Girard could do nothing but cry.

“The trauma of it was unbearable,” she said, recalling the devastation that struck this struggling part of the Delta region that was already no stranger to the blues. The tornado spun on to damage 300 homes, kill 10 people and cause $50 million in damage in an eastward path across the state, earning its place as the worst natural disaster in Mississippi since Hurricane Katrina.

But this week, Ms. Girard was shedding tears of a different sort, as members of Hillcrest Baptist Church hoisted a fresh white steeple above the timber frame that is to be their new sanctuary. It was a moment that, to Ms. Girard and others, felt like a crowning achievement against the storm, an entire year in the making.

“To be down for so long and finally feel that you are coming back up?” she said. “I just started to cry.”

Alton Rivers, a church member, said, “It makes your heart swell.”

The healing that has taken place here is only just beginning in the rest of the region, as cities and towns continue to search for the missing and assess the destruction spawned last week by a barrage of tornadoes from Texas to Virginia. One Mississippi town, Smithville, was virtually erased from the map.

“Our hearts go out to them,” said Mayor McArthur Straughter of Yazoo City.

In Mr. Straughter’s city, though, a year later, people have begun to celebrate small victories in their brick-and-mortar recovery, which, by many accounts, has progressed with speed thanks to a can-do population at ease with heavy lifting and a friendly government. (Gov. Haley Barbour grew up in these parts, and some members of his extended family still call Yazoo City home.)

Where the wind damaged about a quarter of the town on April 24, 2010, there is activity again. Ribeye’s Steak House rebuilt and reopened, and the meat is sizzling.

Women wait for haircuts at the reconstructed Just My Style day spa, where Angie Rhoads, the owner, and 18 customers survived the tornado by huddling around the shampoo bowl as the salon collapsed around them.

Ninety percent of the damaged housing has been rebuilt, and the remaining physical scars — cracked trees, more open space — are apparent only if one focuses on finding them.

What is mortally wounded in this capital of cotton and corn, though, is something deeper, that Southern sense of peace in one’s place, of being one with the land and the elements. So as the people of Yazoo City, population 14,000, took stock of their lives in thankful remembrance, they could not put the April 2010 tornado into the past just yet. They were busy packing boxes of supplies to send to the latest victims, and keeping an eye on floods from the Mississippi River and its swollen tributaries, water that forecasters say is coming Yazoo County’s way.

Evacuations have begun. Officials are being frank about the risks: levees will be topped and cause problems for the region.

“I know I have a lot to be thankful for,” said Ms. Rhoads, 44. “First of all, I’m alive. My business is back. But a flood is coming? Let me tell you: when it thunders, I have a nervous breakdown. I freak out and panic every time I hear something like that.”

Her dog does, too. Lulu, a Chihuahua, lost her hearing in the tornado last year and throws up every time the weather turns.

“It’s been a hard year,” said Wendy Riley, 37, an employee at Just My Style. “I’ve felt lucky, devastated, numb. I guess I didn’t start feeling healthy again until September.”

Ms. Riley said she is relatively content now, her home rebuilt and her children recovering from the trauma of being tossed about by the wind, but she is changed. “I don’t make plans anymore; I live day to day,” she said. “I used to worry myself to death with plans about the future. No more. The future is anybody’s guess.”

Like so many others, Ms. Riley thought about leaving the Delta when her house crumbled and her daughter, Brianna, 15, ended up in a children’s hospital 45 minutes away, battling post-traumatic stress. But she was heartened by the support of her family and friends, and hesitated about leaving her large network behind. There were financial realities, too: “Every door that opened also closed,” she said. “After we paid our mortgage off with insurance money, we didn’t have much left.”

The remains of the house were bulldozed into a backyard gully, and a new three-bedroom modular home rose on the old foundation. It is starting to feel cozy now, and a low-interest loan has helped the family’s finances. “I do love the new house,” she said. “My faith has been renewed. It’s been a healing experience, and I feel like I was meant to be here.”

Ms. Rhoads feels similarly about her salon. “It’s a rock,” she said. As for her home, that is a different story. A place she rents while repairs are being finished on her home in Yazoo County is in the flood zone, so she is on the run again, trying to salvage her family’s belongings.

Asked what she has learned from the yearlong ordeal, she said: “The hardest part for me was accepting help. It’s been hard for me to say, ‘I do need help.’ ”

Pressed for more information, Ms. Rhoads’s mood turned somber and she said, “I don’t like to talk about it.” With that, she began working on another customer’s hair. Ten others waited, but some were just there for the company, the talk therapy disguised as chitchat that happens every day.

Just down Bus Station Road at the Hillcrest Baptist Church construction site, the faithful were all smiles in their work boots, bracing floorboards and cutting wood. The new sanctuary will be bigger and better than the old one, according to the plans. The church received a good insurance payout, and donations have been coming from all over. (One came from an anonymous couple in Australia, $40 cash.)

“There’s a sadness while you’re cleaning up for several months,” said Mr. Rivers, 71. “But as soon as you start to see new buildings going up, houses being renovated and businesses coming back, then your mood starts to change.”

Only one thing robs Mr. Rivers of his newfound high these days: television news footage of the latest post-tornado suffering. “Makes me sick to my stomach looking at what they’re going through,” he said. “The memories.”