A tour of David "Bud" Bell's Little Rock neighborhood on Saturday morning started on the backyard deck of his house on Youngwood Road.
"You see that up there?" Bell said, pointing across the valley toward North Ridge Road, before motioning to his right. "It used to look like that."
Bell, 80, had initially pointed to series of houses in various states of disrepair, some with blue tarps on their roofs.
Before just over a week ago, the homes had been hidden by trees.
"You couldn't see those houses," Bell said. "We've lived here for 32 years and I've never seen those houses."
On March 31, Bell's home and neighborhood were in the direct path of the EF3 tornado that struck west Little Rock.
Eight days later, the sounds of chainsaws filled the air as the neighborhood's cleanup continued.
A small army of volunteers worked to sort debris into piles, many of which were more than 6 feet tall.
Glass littered the street in some areas. Multiple yard signs advertising roofing companies dotted the area.
One home was so damaged, the words "keep out" were spray-painted on one of its walls. Elsewhere, a white Nissan Infiniti sat in the street with its three rear windows blown out.
Across from Bell's home, a crane was being used to move large sections of fallen trees.
"Every tree in my yard is gone," Bell said. "We had the most beautiful oak tree over here. We had a hickory right there. Nothing left."
The bizarre nature of how tornadoes behave was on display in Bell's back yard.
Two small pots that Bell grows tomatoes in sat unmoved on the ground.
Meanwhile, the large shed that Bell used as a painting studio had been thrown from the left side of the yard to the right.
This was Bell's first time to experience a tornado.
"I heard all the horror stories, and it's worse," Bell observed.
When the the tornado hit, Bell was home alone with his dog Riley (his family's "spiritual adviser and general manager") and three cats.
"I was standing in the hallway holding the door [to the basement] and wham, it hit us like a giant baseball bat," Bell said. "All the glass flying down the hallway, and it took the roof off, lifted it up. You could see daylight between the wall and roof."
When it was all over, like other homes in the neighborhood, his was missing a roof.
That was short lived.
The day after the storm, Sylvestre Marinluna, a friend of Bell's of 10 years who is a landscaper, paid him a visit and asked Bell if he needing anything.
"Can you put a roof on my house?" Bell asked.
Marinluna couldn't, but he knew someone who would. Within two hours two men were at his home removing the old roof framing.
Eventually, "five men put a roof on my house, reframed it, decked it and wrapped it in 12 hours," Bell said. "... These people treat me like their own. I feel like that guy would do anything for me. And I don't know how I'll ever repay him."
Bell mentions a specific home down the street, a brick house, that he used to refer to as the "jewel of the neighborhood."
"The couple that lived there is in their mid-80s," Bell said. "The royalty of this neighborhood. They're not going to rebuild."
Bell, with his cane and Riley's leash in hand, lead the way down the street to the house.
The "jewel," a two story home, was now without a roof.
"That was the prettiest house," Bell said.
Bell indicated another damaged house across the street.
"This lady here, she just got through remodeling that house," he noted.
As he walked back to his home, Bell was stopped by a group of volunteers trying to find the city representative coordinating the cleanup effort in the neighborhood.
On this morning, that responsibility fell to Marquis Willis, the city's chief data officer.
Willis, another city representative and a Federal Emergency Management Agency official, worked from a van right around the corner from Bell's home.
"Things are going well," Willis said. "We've got a significant number of volunteers. We're just trying to make sure that we get everybody assigned and placed in an area where they can be efficient and effective in helping with the cleanup efforts."
At one point, while the other city representative gave instructions to a set of volunteers, a gray truck pulled up to the scene. A woman sitting in the passenger seat wordlessly handed off two boxes of donuts and the truck pulled away.
According to Willis, more than 2,900 structures were impacted by the tornado.
Willis said city had given out 200 housing vouchers to help residents find temporary shelter. It has received 400 pallets of food donations and supplies for the relief effort, as well as just over $100,000 in donations to the Little Rock Cares Emergency Relief Fund.
"It's terrible what people are experiencing, but it's exciting to see the way the community responds," Willis said.
Willis proceeded to deliver instructions to a trio of volunteers who had just walked up.
One of them was Caleb Nicholas, who lives near where Rodney Parham Road meets Markham Street.
What made Nicholas want to use his Saturday helping the storm ravaged neighborhood?
"Service is an important thing," Nicholas said. "That comes from our general society's idea of what it means and also what I believe as a Christian ... These people faced a great trial, and I have the capacity and ability to help them."
Volunteers help remove debris from the front yard of a home on Richwood Road in the hard hit Kingwood neighborhood of Little Rock on Saturday, more than a week after a strong tornado caused extensive damage throughout Little Rock and North Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Colin Murphey)