Nearly a month after the deadly tornadoes that struck Arkansas and other parts of the South, the scars abound: those on the landscape and on us as a people.
Some areas are still littered with debris, while others look more normal (though denuded of trees and homes), but cleanup will continue for months. In the past week, Pulaski County workers have been picking up debris that, because it was on private roads, they initially wouldn’t. The county’s cost is expected to be $3.5 million to pick up and process all the debris on public and private roads.
So far, nearly $2 million in individual assistance has been approved for residents in the 11 Arkansas counties declared federal disaster areas after the storms. But individual assistance isn’t all that’s available, Rita Egan, a media relations specialist for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told me. Groups can apply for grants for the building of community shelters through FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program.
Stories after the storms showed how important a good shelter can be. About 400 people took shelter at a community safe room at Vilonia High School. “I’m sure having safe rooms saved some lives,” Vilonia School District Superintendent Frank Mitchell told Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Brenda Bernet. “A lot of houses around there were totally destroyed.”
Reader Ray Dardenne of Stuttgart, noting the numbers saved by that shelter and others, wrote and said he hopes that safe rooms will be included in the construction of a new middle school to be built in DeWitt. I’d have to agree for just about any school.
More than 120 community safe rooms have been built in Arkansas since 2000, and another 44 are being built, according to Brandon Morris of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Grants pay for 75 percent of the cost of building the shelters, which must be built to FEMA standards.
School systems like Vilonia, which has three such rooms, and Fort Smith, with 23, open their shelters to the community during weather warnings when school is not in session; the rest of the time they’re primarily for the safety of students, faculty and staff.
Quite a bit different from the days of sitting in interior hallways with your head in your lap, a time I miss not at all, especially during an especially long storm. The crick in my neck always took days to get rid of.
Egan told me that interest in FEMA’s safe-room funding program has increased in the counties most affected by the tornadoes, but said “preparedness doesn’t end there.” She cautioned that, once the shelter is built to the standards necessary to receive FEMA funding, it’s vital to make sure to register the location of the shelter with emergency managers or local authorities. If, after a disaster, the shelter is blocked with debris, knowing where it is will help rescue workers get out anyone stuck inside the safe room that much faster.
That’s an important step many people probably never thought about.
Is your community interested in building a safe room? Go to www.fema.gov/safe-room-funding for all the particulars, including case studies on other communities’ safe rooms, and how to apply for grants. It just might save some more lives.
As cleanup continues, said Egan, we have to also remember that recovery is a process: “Recovery is long and arduous and each person has their own guidepost.” Beyond physical and structural recovery, she said, you “have to do it mentally and emotionally.” Whether that’s done through taking breaks to rest, playing games with the kids, or just going out to eat, it’ll go a long way toward healing a wounded psyche.
As terrible as this storm was, it proved something to me—that at heart, no matter how our politics may differ, we’re all part of one family: Arkansans. Neighbor has helped neighbor, stranger helped stranger, and showed the brand of kindness that asks nothing in return.
Inside, we’re all the same. Our politics do not define us; our humanity does. We get scared, but we will persevere.
We’re Arkansas strong, and we can stay that way.
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Assistant Editor Brenda Looper is editor of the Voices page. Read her blog at blooper0223. wordpress.com.