By Carl Manning
American Red Cross

Red Cross caseworker John Kinder was working at the Recovery Center in Jacksonville, AR, talking to people who came in seeking assistance after a tornado caused extensive damage to homes throughout the town.

There hadn’t been that many people coming to the center that morning, so John and another volunteer were asked to drive through one of the hardest hit areas and see if there were people who needed assistance but unable to get to the center.

As they drove down the streets of a neighborhood the tornado had ravaged, the devastation was obvious and overwhelming. Yards filled with brush and uprooted trees cut up by chain saws, vehicles with dented roofs and shattered windshields, houses in varying stages of damage and destruction.

Their first stop was at a house where the carport had collapsed, and the roof had extensive damage. Nobody was home so John taped a flyer to the front door with the location and hours of the center.

A couple more stops, and John found Connie Keister standing in her front yard eyeing the damaged roof that was now covered with blue tarps. She explained that she hadn’t had time to get to the center, and John assured her that wasn’t a problem as he proceeded to open his laptop.

Connie invited him to sit on one of the porch chairs and as they began talking about her situation, he began collecting information to start a case file for her on the spot.

She was at home with her husband when the tornado found its way to their neighborhood. Connie said she was cowering in the bathroom and her husband was hunkered down in the hallway.

“I’ve never been in a tornado, and I never want to see one again. I was so afraid,” she said. “I was in the bathroom praying. I got hit in the head with some debris and am ok, but some people were really hurt.”

Looking around the house whose roof is covered in blue tarp, she added, “At least the house is still standing and that’s really a blessing. A lot of people around here have it much worse than we do.”

Connie said she really appreciated that the Red Cross sought her out because with all the things she was dealing with at the house, she said it was unlikely that she would have made it to the center for assistance.