Indiana town’s residents rebuild after tornado

Nine miles away from a disaster relief site, the pungent smell of gasoline mixed with smoke from chainsaws permeates the town of Henryville, Ind. The stench is one of the remnants of the tornado that devastated the area only one week ago.

Two women walk into Ivy Tech Community College in Sellersburg, Ind., close to one another, nearly arm in arm.

Little would make them stand out in a crowd. They’re clad in jeans and old sweatshirts, with graying hair pulled back in braids. One wears a black-and-yellow letter jacket with “Henryville” in swirly letters sewn on the back.

Rain is falling hard, and the two duck into Ogle Hall at Ivy Tech. They aren’t students or professors, but they need to be there. Their only opportunity for income is inside.

Several state agencies have pooled resources to make the campus a “one-stop shop,” allowing people affected by the March 2 tornado to apply for unemployment support, file insurance claims and replace lost birth certificates and drivers’ licenses.

Geraldine Noble, 57, and Patty Stewart, 51, call themselves a “dynamic duo,” and they say that bond is the only reason they can cope with the destruction of Henryville, Ind.

***

On March 2, Geraldine and Patty were at work in Henryville’s elementary and junior-senior high school, emptying trash cans and mopping the floors of the town’s only school. The two performed their jobs with little enthusiasm, going through basic routines. They had no idea that in a matter of hours, most of the building would be gone.

The wind outside scared them, though, as did the radar showing red and yellow masses spreading through southern Indiana.

A town in Illinois had been destroyed only two days before by storms newscasters said were headed their way.

As the weather worsened, Geraldine and Patty decided their safety was more important than their work shift. They and Geraldine’s daughter, a student in the high school, and two of the girl’s friends rushed to Patty’s Kia Soul, piling into the small car to head to a neighbor’s house. The five of them joined another family in a spacious basement, and they waited for the storms.

Patty said the storms hit at about 3:15 p.m., but they couldn’t hear anything at first. Darkness fell outside, and the quiet was deafening.

Only a few minutes later, baseball-sized hail slammed into the house and Patty’s car, which was parked outside. Patty said it sounded like cannonballs hitting the roof.

It seemed as though the storm lasted forever. Patty and Geraldine assumed after a while that it had to be about 6 p.m. They checked a watch. It was just shy of 4 p.m.

When they emerged from the basement hours later, the skyline had changed.

Trees littered the roads and yards, and glass was scattered outside the house. Patty had no idea what to expect next. Geraldine looked around her, and entire houses were gone.

“You just lose all track of time,” Geraldine said. “I’m still in shock.”

***

Henryville remains as in shock as Geraldine.

The Thursday after the storm, the skies are still a roiling dark gray, and rain falls hard on volunteers stacking tree trunks as if they were piles of twigs.

Phone line wires crisscross in muddy puddles. Cars, trucks and vans snake through one cleared road in the town, and many are packed with furniture and clothes.

West Clark Community Schools Bus 211 is still lodged in the front of Budroe’s Family Restaurant, where it landed last week. Someone has scrawled “Allstate call me! Julie and Todd Money” in black permanent marker across the hood of a blue Pontiac Vibe. Trees uprooted in a backyard of a one-story white house grow slick in the rain, but a row of daffodils remains unspoiled.

There are some signs of cleanup.

Inmates from Clark County and other surrounding communities are brought in to clean up the streets.

United Way volunteers hand out water.

The sky begins to darken at about 10 a.m. Contractors set up lights with bright bulbs on any flat surface they can find.

The weather station reports a strong wind is coming.

People begin to tie down makeshift tents covering food and water. There aren’t supposed to be strong storms, but the people of Henryville will probably never take a strong wind lightly again.

Outside the school that once provided Geraldine and Patty’s livelihoods, there’s a traffic sign that spells “No School” in orange light bulbs. It flickers to finish “Week of March 5.”

Pieces of metal cling to the sides of the building in some places, but most have been ripped away like tissue paper.

That school provided Geraldine with what she, a single mother, needed to support her daughter, who could go to college soon. It gave Patty a steady schedule and standard of living to rely upon.

But one storm tore the school and their lives away.

It’s time to rebuild those lives.

***

Inside one of two new buildings at Ivy Tech, Geraldine and Patty find people in bright red shirts with “State of Indiana Disaster Response Team” stenciled in white, bold letters.

Workers from various Indiana agencies — the Department of Education, Family and Social Services Administration and others — lead people to a back room.

Inside are stacked boxes of paperwork and rows of tables with laptops and cords in small piles.

Using Dell laptops, extension cords and a small bit of good faith, the agency workers will try to help people recreate legal documents.

Gary Green, director of student services at the Indiana Department of Education, is “on loan,” in his own words, to Clark County for the relief effort.

He says Indiana agencies are trying to replace necessary identification, offer mental health services and provide tetanus shots to those cut by glass or metal in the storm.

“They found paperwork from Henryville in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky,” Green says, shaking his head.

The response team plans to stay at Ivy Tech for at least 10 days but will stay as long as it receives valid requests for help, Green says.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still assessing the damage in Clark County.

Once President Barack Obama declares the area a disaster zone, Green says the agency will be able to provide faster service to the victims.

Driving rain and cold wind linger, but Geraldine and Patty have survived worse.

After making their way inside, they talk to people from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

Geraldine needs the money for her daughter. She needs to receive money lost from not being able to work, and she needs her insurance claim to be processed quickly.

She lost her Saturn and her daughter’s Chevrolet Cavalier in the storm.

The department told her she would need to wait three to four weeks for the check to come in the mail — a long time for a woman with no other income.

“But they’re helping,” she says. “I still have my house. I’m luckier than most. Now, I just have to wait.”