In the Missouri Ozarks, residents struggle to rebuild after tornadoes

WAYNE COUNTY, Mo. — People are spread thin through the Ozark hills of this county. Some 11,000 of them live in the small towns and enclaves linked by two-lane highways and narrow gravel roads snaking through the forest.

Then the tornados came. A massive storm system swept through states from Kansas to Alabama triggering fires, dust storms and dozens of reported tornadoes. Three twisters raked Wayne County churning homes into rubble.

Wayne County Sheriff Kyle Shearrer just took over the job three months ago.

“You get so many warnings, nothing ever happens. And this time it happened,” Shearrer said, surveying splintered houses near the town of Leeper, Mo. “As you can see, it’s … it’s just loss. It’s total loss.”

Three people died here, near the banks of the Black River.

About 20 miles north, in a valley near Gads Hill, another twister chewed up and spit out homes and parked camping trailers.

Casey Melton has two houses to pick through — his own place and the one where he grew up. It stood for 50 years before the tornado ripped it apart.

Melton and his grandfather managed to get out before the storm hit. He says National Weather Service alerts gave them half an hour to take cover in a FEMA shelter eight miles away. Others here weren’t so fortunate. Three people died less than a block from here.

“These two over here were in their home. They believed they were asleep,” Melton said. “They found them out in their pajamas in the yard, lifelong residents here, good neighbors.”

Looking at the rubble here, it’s hard to imagine anyone surviving. But Jeff and Christina Adler took a direct hit from the tornado in their 28-foot camper. Jeff Adler said they narrowly escaped death.

“All these rocks here were shooting through the windows like somebody was shooting a BB gun at us,” said Adler. “And then it just started to tip over and just started rolling, rolling and rolling. I thought to myself, ‘You know what, this is the way I’m going to die. … I just hope it ain’t going to hurt.’ And you know, right after that, I was laying on the ground.”

They don’t know how they escaped the disintegrating trailer. They just both found themselves on the ground in the hard cold rain, searching for each other.

“I just remember looking up yelling for him, and he was yelling for me. And he jumped on top of me as the storm was going, and we just held each other and prayed,” said Christina Adler.

They got out in the nick of time. The twister quickly ripped the trailer apart and flung sheet metal and all the stuff they had inside across an area larger than a city block.

“A lot of our camper is in that creek there,” said Jeff Adler, pointing across a field, “And then the actual frame tires are laying in the field on the other side of it.”

The Adlers say they don’t care at all about losing their camping trailer, a retreat from their normal lives in Arnold, Mo.

But they are devastated at the loss of their dog, which also escaped the trailer but hasn’t come back.

“You know the camper, that’s all material stuff. There’s nothing in there that was even worth worrying about. Right now, it’s doing everything we can to find our dog,” said Jeff Adler.

Their 10- or 12-pound, 3-year-old, white Shih Tzu, Piper.

“I think she’ll come to me. I know she’ll come to me. She hears my voice, she will come to me,” said Christina Adler.

And then she broke into tears, calling into the woods near their old campsite, but Piper didn’t come.