TYRONZA, Ark. — Cleanup is underway in the small Arkansas community of Tyronza that was hit hard by the EF-1 tornado earlier this week.
More than 80 homes and businesses were damaged in the town with a little more than 700 people.
Just a few days ago, Staci Ferguson heard the EF-1 tornado cutting a path of destruction through her town.
“It was just kind of a ‘Woo, Woo,’ a train in the distance that you would hear,” she said.
The tornado damaged her home and vehicle and destroyed her husband’s shop. They had to begin cleaning up the home they’ve lived in for 28 years
“It literally just hit us this morning how bad it was,” Ferguson said.
A few blocks away, associates from Memphis-area Home Depot stores cleared down trees.
“We sent the memo out, ‘Hey, we need help. Who can come out and help?'”
With a few hours notice, 22 employees answered the call.
“It’s all about doing the right thing.”
Marquee Hall, a specialty assistant store manager in Collierville, said the team plans to spend all day doing what they can.
“It’s tough to imagine how they feel, so to come out and actually see it it makes you feel like, ‘Hey I got to do something,'” Hall said. “If you’re a Fortune 500 company, you should be in your community. You should be taking care of your people.”
Home Depot employees were not the only ones lending a hand. We told you earlier this week about volunteers from the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief on site within hours, people bringing in food and drinks and firefighters and local enforcement from area communities helping, too.
“It just does your heart good to see these people coming in,” Tyronza mayor Charles Glover said.
Ferguson, though knowing cleanup won’t happen overnight, is still thankful.
“It can all be replaced,” she said. “We’re just thankful that everyone is alive and no one was seriously injured.”
One of the priorities will be getting all the limbs off the street and hauled off, and an insurance company is supposed to be looking at the store soon to see what happens next.