The Tornado - 6 months later

Yesterday marks 6 months since the tornado tore through our county and those around it, claiming 25 lives.

Looking at the picture, you can see the clearly see part of the 41 mile path.

Today, everywhere you look in areas that were damaged, there is a sea of blue tarps covering houses where once a roof stood. Many houses have been condemned - just waiting for man to finish the job Mother Nature started.

Volunteer clean up crews are still working every weekend, cleaning one area at a time. Last weekend a volunteer had a fatal heart attack while loading a truck -- in a way the tornado claimed yet another life.

The farmers are having to be extra careful with their field preparation this year. Whereas in years past, they might have had to pick up a few stray objects before planting, a tornado makes it a whole new game. Tractors pulling flat bed trailers go through the fields, groups of men walking along side them, loading them as they walk with insulation, furniture, toys, clothes, appliances and hundreds of other pieces of someone's life, blown away in an instant.

Where there were once hillsides covered in long lines of tall beautiful pine trees, now remains only what appear to be giant toothpicks sticking out of the ground, broken off at jagged angles.

The paper still carries stories of the survivors ~~ and of those who didn't. Recently there was an article showing a man who lives about a mile from us. He was in a coma for weeks after the tornado, unaware that his daughter had died. The picture in the paper showed him and his family at the grave site on his daughter's birthday. He chose that day to watch, for the first time video of her funeral, recorded by her high school media class.

Our area continues to repair, recover and return to a sense of normalcy. Injuries are healing. Hurts are easing. And prayers are still needed.