Winds from Hell - Conclusion

      The neighbors continued on with the house. A group of Mennonites came down from up north somewhere, and they helped finish it. How they ever talked the dad into letting them, I'll never know. Just as they had put on the finishing touches, The city decided to use that land for the new City Hall. So it was torn down again. But I guess the old man, (who reminded me of my Dad) his hard working son, wife and kids, came out better financially. When the city takes land, I've heard they pay by the square foot, which also means through the nose. I never did know their names, or what became of them. But I still think of them occasionally, with a lot of respect.

        Much of this next segment is based of fact, as I remember it. The rest is based on the scuttlebutt around town about what was going on at City Hall. Scuttlebutt is not necessarily true, but it sure began to seem to me like it was. Some said City Hall was being transformed. Since so many were rebuilding, It was a really good time to toughen up the city building standards. The new City Manager seemed to me to be a bit of a gunslinger, and, as he came from Cut and Shoot, Texas, maybe he was

.

      Our Clay street house was rebuilt, for about what the house cost me in the first place. This was the first rebuilt house to be finished since the tornado, I was told, and the scuttlebutt was, it was destined to become the test house for the new building policy.

      The current City Inspector left about that time. Scuttlebutt had it he couldn't stomach what was about to happen to these poor people trying to rebuild. Three or so new, temporary, building inspectors were brought in, from different parts of the country. I won't go so far as to say they were extreme hard cases, but in my dealings with them, I had every reason to believe they were.

     When the contractor finished with the house, they would not approve it. They had me doing more and more little changes, call them to inspect it, then they would add another list of things. The house sat empty, for days and days. There was no shortage of people wanting to rent it, because there were tons of people without a house. I spent days sitting in city hall, waiting for an inspector to go look at the last batch of improvements I had been required to do.

      A man from Catholic Relief Services came by. He had a family, he said, huddled in what was a piece of a house. A bulldozer sat in the front yard, ready to tear it down. They had no place to go. He wanted to rent my house. I told him I could not rent it to him, City Hall was not happy with it yet. He just said, "Let's go to City Hall." Well, when he got down there in front of those inspectors, I finally learned what a true hard case looked and sounded like.

      The city eased up a little. An inspector came out. He finally said, "If you will build a wooden box around the breaker box on the front porch, I'll release the house." I reminded him the breakers were already enclosed in a metal box. He looked at me hard awhile, then pointed to the front steps. "You know," he said, there really needs to be a rail there." I shut up and started building a box.

Remember, that was 1997. this is 2012. Today, we have a local guy as City Manager, who turned out to be, in my opinion, our best. And, our new inspector, he's a firm but fair man. He still calls me to task, on occasion, and he holds my feet to the fire. But only when I deserve it. As a landlord, I have every reason to suck up to those guys. But what I have just said is true, never the less.

      That was our last year in business. The tornado did not drive us out, we already had that planned. Our family was very lucky, all in all. But I sure would not want to go through it again.

Hundreds, and I mean Hundreds, of volunteers stepped in and helped our recovery. I can't say enough about the University students. Kinley had stored what we salvaged in our garage, and a team of OBU students came out one day, went through each of the hundreds ot tiny things, and cleaned each one. They really came through for Arkadelphia when the chips were down.

      During the time when the National Guard was deployed in Arkadelphia, two of them had planned on getting married. So, Arkadelphia threw them a free wedding. Business people chipped in to help out in their specialty areas. Barbara and I made the wedding pictures. It turned out to be a fun wedding for Arkadelphia, and them too, I think. It was a pleasant little respite during very hard days.

      We lost some of our best people. We all grieve for those families. They will never be forgotten. A lot of people lost a great deal. Arkadelphia has recovered, and the physical reminders of those dark days are gone, except for a blank space here and there. But March 1, 1997 will always be in the minds and hearts of all of us who were there that day.

      Nowadays, our family tells Kinley when a storm comes up, "Kinley, think about it! Nobody, but nobody, ever gets hit by a tornado – twice!" It dosen't help her attitude about it much that she has twice had to be moved out into the hallway of a hospital when she was in labor, because a tornado was heading that way. So, don't expect to find Kinley when the dark clouds roll in. She will be in her hidey-hole. I will probably be there with her.

      Thanks for reading!