Tornado victims face a lost sense of home

In Atkins, Ark., Barbara and Billy Nunnelly's "dream home" was nearly realized. It had custom copper shrouds on the two chimneys, Italian glass tile in the master bath, hardwoods and granite counters throughout.

From the outside, it looks as if the three-story stucco home weathered the killer twisters with little more than some missing coppering and a few lost shingles. But inside, seams have opened up along the cathedral ceilings, and roof joists have been twisted apart.

It will most likely have to be razed.

Barbara Nunnelly had tears in her eyes, irritated by smoke from nearby debris fires, as she contemplated what was lost.

There were the material things — "I put the very best of everything in this home," she said.

But there was also the memory of something simpler and more profound: "It's just something we've done together, me and my husband."

Most of the homes lost were far more modest. Pam Whitaker, 54, who was already disabled with a serious muscle ailment and now has oozing eyes from broken glass that flew into them in the storm, lost the mobile home she shares with her mother.

Whitaker said the most important thing she lost was a cedar chest. Inside it was baby clothing and the death certificate of her son, who died 30 years ago of pneumonia at age 3 months.

For now, the women are living at the National Guard armory in the town of 23,000, where Whitaker, hobbled by the foot injury, nevertheless sets up cots as newcomers arrive and helps serve meals.

She's worried about what happens when the shelter closes.

"We have no home," she said. "Unless a miracle happens, me and my mother are homeless."

This is not to say that the people who survived the killer storms have lost sight of the fact that the most valuable things recovered from their homes were something else: Their very lives.

In Lafayette, Mike Clark was using a metal detector, without much luck, to find class rings and other jewelry missing from what was left of his brother's home. The brother was in a Lebanon hospital. He was sucked out of the house by the storm and tossed 20 yards away.

"Considering there isn't even a floor joint left in the house," Clark said, "I guess they're lucky to have their lives."

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