Mena church a haven for 2nd time

MENA — MENA - For the storm survivors who filed into this battered town's Catholic church on Sunday, the old, stone building held new meaning.

When the sirens sounded Thursday night, they rushed to the church's basement. Windows shattered around them, a baby screamed.

Then they took Holy Communion, said some extra prayers and sang some extra songs before emerging into the night to find their town devastated.

"I can't even describe how relieved I am to have been here," said Shannon Anderson, whose baby girl cooed and cried as Easter service began at St. Agnes Catholic Church.

She was one of a couple of dozen parishioners who were attending Mass on Thursday and escaped the storm unscathed after huddling below the sanctuary. Many returned Sunday to receive a message of hope and rebirth.

Just steps away from the church, homes were in ruins.Giant trees were uprooted.

David Davis, his wife and two children were attending Mass on Thursday. When they began walking the three blocks home, not knowing what they'd find, they saw pieces of their red roof strewn about the neighborhood. Only some rafters and four rock walls remained.

"A bulldozer will take care of that," a red-faced and weary Davis said as he sat in a pew of St. Agnes on Sunday.

He wiped his eyes, held his wife, Rachel, and comforted his daughter, Megan, 13, as they sang "Hallelujah." "It gives a whole new meaning to Holy Week," Rachel Davis said.

The Most Rev. Anthony B. Taylor, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Little Rock, traveled to the remote mountain town to deliver the Easter sermon.

"You'll look back on these days as the finest days of your community," he told a packed church as rain beat down and thunder rumbled. "It's a miracle many of you came through unscathed." The morning's downpour hampered cleanup efforts and wreaked more havoc on tattered homes. The hardest-hit neighborhood west of the downtown square that was flooded with volunteers and workers Friday and Saturday remained wet and quiet for the first part of the day.

"This is the last thing we need," said George McKee, mayor of the town of 5,700.

Officials distributed roughly 1,000 tarps before the rain fell. But it wasn't enough to fully protect the homes.

Two inches of water had flooded Fire Chief John Puckett's bedroom by midmorning, after rain seeped through plastic coverings.

Workers continued to repair power lines and remove debris. And officials were still assessing damage to determine whether federal aid would be administered.

About 1,000 Southwestern Electric Power customers remained without power Sunday, down from a peak of 3,500 immediately after the storm, company spokesman Peter Main said. The company had almost 100 workers in the area Sunday, and 40 more are expected to arrive from northwestern Louisiana today. The company hopes to have power restored to 95 percent of Mena customers by Friday, Main said.

"There's more than 200 ... poles [either] on the ground or broken that we're having to replace," Main said. "We're having to rebuild entire circuits."

Mena, which is in Polk County and near the Oklahoma state line, was the hardest hit after Thursday's round of tornadoes.

Polk, Sevier and Howard counties have been declared state disaster areas.

"We need federal aid," said McKee, while working out of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management's mobile command unit.

He said it was too early to have a cost estimate for the damage. The 14.5-mile path of destruction included some 600 buildings, according to early estimates.

"We'll be dead and gone before we get over it," said Regina Walker, the city clerk.

The Sherrer family took a break from putting their lives back together to worship at First Baptist Church on Sunday.

In sweatshirts, track pants and jeans instead of their usual Easter best, the family hugged their friends and shared their harrowing story.

When the EF3 twister ripped through killing three, the family of five huddled in the closet of their big, brick house on the west side of town.

When the roar of the storm stopped, Paulette Sherrer looked up.

"Why do I see light?" she asked her husband, Clifton. "Because we don't have a roof," he told her.

There were no Easter baskets or egg hunts for their three children this year. And they will have to rebuild their house from top to bottom.

But their spirits are not broken.

"A resurrection has begun," Clifton Sherrer said before service began in an auditorium, as the sanctuary had sustained damage. "It might take longer than it took for Christ, but it has begun." Information for this article was provided by Andy Davis of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.