Grassroots tornado recovery efforts take hold in rural community where Arkansans feel forgotten

A week after a tornado destroyed their Decatur home on May 26, 2024, Austin and Jess Rodriguez were still sorting through the debris on their 10-acre homestead. (Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)

DECATUR — Austin and Jess Rodriguez were headed home from a friend’s funeral in Los Angeles when they learned a tornado had struck their Decatur property on May 26.

After climbing through trees and brush covering the road, the couple discovered their “forever home” nestled at the bottom of a hill had been flung about 150 yards into the creek. It looked like it’d been put through a woodchipper, Jess said.

The landscape of the steep ravine surrounding what was left of their 10-acre homestead was also completely altered. All sorts of debris littered the ground — gnarled trees, twisted metal and personal belongings.

LISTEN:

Hear Austin and Jess Rodriguez share their reaction of when they first saw their destroyed home and how they’re feeling after a week of cleanup.

A week after the storm, the Rodriguezes were still sifting through the rubble, exhausted and overwhelmed, longing to just go home.

“But we can’t go home. There’s not one to go home to, just dirt,” Jess said.

Complicating matters, their home was uninsured. The couple was bringing the structure up to code so it could be covered and were nearly done when the storm hit.

Austin isn’t sure where to start, but said they have to keep going.

“You got to keep pushing forward. We got to … we’ll reclaim it, take a couple years,” he said.

The couple hopes they can salvage another structure on the property for a temporary dwelling and are staying with family in the interim. Although grateful for assistance they’ve received from friends, Austin said he knows the aid will fade away.

“It’s great to see people come out and help,” he said. “I wish we were those people, in a position to go out and help because we’d do the same thing … but how am I supposed to help you if I can’t even help myself?”

Concern that support will dwindle as time passes is a big fear for Thomas Blackwell, who’s working to connect rural residents like the Rodriguezes to other community members who can provide assistance.

“Hope is hard for these families out here right now,” he said. “There’s a sense of forgottenness that’s very tangible, and so by speaking to the forgottenness, we are instilling hope and that is the most powerful thing any family can have right now.”

Decatur’s downtown buildings were untouched by two tornadoes over Memorial Day weekend, but many farms west of town were obliterated. According to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service, winds reached as high as 155 miles per hour, flipping mobile homes and cars upside down and ripping trees out of the ground.

The president last week granted Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ request for a major disaster declaration following the destruction caused by more than a dozen tornadoes across north Arkansas. While federal assistance is on the way, it takes time.

Meanwhile, neighbors are stepping in to help neighbors. Although he’s helping make connections, Blackwell said disaster relief is outside his wheelhouse as the executive director of Benton County Sharing & Caring, a nonprofit that operates a Christmas assistance program and scholarship fund for career and technical education courses.

“That’s our normal,” he said. “Obviously when a tornado rips through your town, you go out of normal.”

While there’s a larger population in Rogers, a nearby city that’s been a hotspot for donations and visits by state and federal officials, Blackwell said the help Decatur needs “is a different scale and a different flavor.” The rural residents are more disconnected from resources, especially with the interruption of internet and phone service, he said.

But the smaller population density didn’t lessen the impact. Tornadoes destroyed generational homes and devastated crops and livestock, threatening livelihoods, Blackwell said. Poultry is a big industry in Decatur, where the remains of demolished chicken homes are sprawled across the countryside.

The population is more sparse out in Decatur, but people were hit worse. A lot of times there’s nothing left.

– Keith Sharp, tornado recovery volunteer

Keith Sharp said his friend, who wished to remain anonymous, lost some cattle in the storm. Though not his full-time job, he had about 80 head of cattle on his 260-acre farm where his family has lived for more than 20 years.

The family was out of town when the storm destroyed their home, which was “squarely in the path” of the tornado. When Sharp arrived to help, he saw a collapsed brick wall atop the bed of his friend’s daughter and trees that had smashed into fencing.

Sharp said he has “a particular set of skills to bring people together,” which he used to help coordinate recovery efforts. Friends mended fences while a 4-H club cleaned up a recently planted garden. A Little Rock nursery owner assisting with the cleanup donated several plants.

“I have a lot of good friends, and that’s what happened is a lot of good people pulled together and those people got more people and we ended up with a great group of people out there that really worked hard,” Sharp said.

From what he’s observed and heard from local residents, Sharp said aid for Decatur has come together more slowly than in neighboring cities, like Rogers, which is about 20 miles away.

“Rogers was getting the primary share of support because the population is more sparse out in Decatur, but people were hit worse,” he said. “A lot of times there’s nothing left. So I don’t think the resources showed up as urgently in Decatur as they did for Rogers.”

However, Sharp said he was impressed with the quick response by linemen restoring power lines and found it “really thoughtful” when the Benton County Sheriff’s Office distributed batteries to charge phones so people could stay in touch with loved ones.

For Blackwell, the use of the Crisis Cleanup app has been helpful in addressing residents’ immediate needs as people await more formal aid to trickle in. The app, which he described as “Craig’s List, but for crisis cleanup,” allows residents to request assistance with specific tasks, like catching loose chickens or cutting down trees, that volunteers can claim and then complete.

“Some of the needs are huge, a lot of the needs aren’t big at all. They just need a couple extra pair of hands,” he said. “They just need to know where to go and this helps people know where to be pointed.”

An excavator would be helpful for the Rodriguez family, who’s sorting usable scrap materials from unsalvageable debris. Austin said they hope to find loggers to buy their timber, but many are booked. Their property’s terrain presents another challenge because there are few flat places where debris can be moved, so roll-off dumpsters have become essential.

Austin said he never could have imagined the support he’s seen among  neighbors. While he’s typically not a person who asks for help, he said it’s been awesome to have a tight-knit community that can rely on each other.

“When a friend asks for help, help ‘em,” he said. “That would make the world turn so much easier if everybody just helped.”

Like many storm-affected families, Austin and Jess know the road to recovery is long, so they’re taking it one day at a time.

“Got to keep your head up, keep pushing on,” Austin said. “I don’t want to give up this spot, but dang, there’s a lot of work.”

The post Grassroots tornado recovery efforts take hold in rural community where Arkansans feel forgotten appeared first on Arkansas Advocate .