Those living in the areas hardest hit by Sunday night’s tornados say they’re looking to the future.
The disaster zone in West Tennessee stretches from Newbern east to Bradford. It’s mostly sprawling farms of soy beans, cotton and corn with small towns scattered in between. By the deadly storms rolled in Sunday night, many had already lost power like Billy Yergin.
He and his family have a four-thousand acre farm in the small community of Walnut Grove. Yergin says Friday afternoon he planted 15-acres of corn around his house. Now he’s running over it as he cleans up debris.
Yergin and his wife took shelter in an interior room – just about the only part of the house left standing.
“I’m going to get a track hoe in here and we’re going to tear it down and we’re going to dig a big hole out there and bury it. There’s nothing left but walls. The roof’s all gone. Everything is gone. The furniture is all shot. The rain came in on it after the roof came off. There’s just nothing salvageable in there.”
Yergin is optimistic about rebuilding and says he’s relieved that his family is safe. Yergin’s neighbors weren’t as lucky. They were asleep when their mobile home smashed into Yergin’s front field. The two were critically injured.
Anyone interested in being a part of the tornado relief effort should contact the Dyer County Red Cross.
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