Devastated into exhaustion

This past weekend's tornado brought havoc on the city of Prattville,Alabama which is about a ten or fifteen minute drive from where we live in my mother's home in Millbrook. Our church is located along the back side of where most of the damage occured, and many of our church members live in the areas devastated by the storm. In fact, our church is still without phone and internet but thankfully the power has been restored.
I work for the Winn-Dixie in Millbrook, and while I was at work yesterday there was a woman who came in from a local church in Millbrook called Grace Community Church. I told her that our church was still without power as of Monday morning (the storm ripped through Prattville late in the afternoon on Sunday) and asked what I could do to help her church out.
She told me that a group of their members had been given permission to set up grills in the parking lot of Krystal's, which is an area directly in front of some of the hardest hit areas. She called her husband, who advised me to be there between 4-5pm. I sent an email out to choir members from our church and around 5:30, Donna Parker, myself, and two of Donna's friends set out for Cobbs Ford Road. We had heard late yesterday that they reopened McQueen Smith and Cobbs Ford Road once the majority of the power lines had been cleaned up and most of the scattered debris was off the roads.
When we turned onto McQueen Smith Road where our church is located, you couldn't really see alot of the damage until we past the church. Then you begin to notice the swirling lights of State Trooper cars (checking IDs for people entering neighborhoods) and then chunks of privacy fences were upturned on the side of the road, or missing entirely from where they should've been. Coming up on Prattville Wal-mart you notice that the fence that lined the shopping center is caked in debris - plastic bags, insulation, metal pieces, stray tree limbs. The power is back up and running but the entire place looks like a war zone.
I heard someone on the news Sunday afternoon report that the Army National Guard recruiting center had damage. Actually, the entire half of that building, which was located just behind the Krystal's we worked next to, is completely gone. Damaged is kind of an understatement.
We had our first round of state troopers who were getting off work, and then came a flock of people from the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Following them was a trail of workers from the power and phone companies, and then the relief workers kind of died off. Donna, her friends and I chatted with some of the members of Grace Community Church and then left about 8:00pm when the crowd seemed to dwindle. They were looking for volunteers to come back and work during breakfast, and I went back at seven o'clock this morning.
When I arrived, there were some people that had been there the night before that greeted me. Many of the state troopers had pulled out of Prattville, but one of the GCC members volunteered to take biscuits back into the neighborhoods and I asked if I could ride along with him on his four-wheeler.
Practically blinded by the cold, it was unbelievable to witness the debris we just road right over. The sign that stood at Season's Drive was lying on the ground as we past that street and turned down one I didn't recognize. The pictures that have been taken don't do the damage any justice. It is shocking to pass one house, completely standing with maybe a bit of debris scattered and then to see the house nextdoor lying in a pile of rubble.
One of the girls I spoke to from my own church yesterday said that while her house was still standing, she could look out her back window and she no longer had neighbors. I have not been close enough to the damage at Wal-mart, but just looking across the street from Krystal's it looks like a warzone. The K-Mart that once stood on Cobbs Ford Road might as well be demolished, for all the destruction it took from the tornado.
I am absolutely devastated by this disaster, and I have not lost anything. Nobody that I know lost their lives in this storm. Yet in a sense, they have. Mike and Leslie Whaley, two members of our church, and their 3-year-old son Noah lost their home in the storm. Thankfully most of their belongings have been salvaged, but I certain this was still a heartbreaking ordeal for them. And my heart goes out to all the people who could not salvage their belongings or may not even be able to get back to their homes yet.
God was good in sparing lives, only a few people had to be taken to the hospital for injuries but from the looks of things it is going to take the city of Prattville a long time to recover.