Picking up the pieces: How a small town's spirit and kindness shine amid the wreckage of Harmony Hills

As Harmony Hills residents continued to pick up the pieces Wednesday, a group arrived in red t-shirts carrying food and water. The East Carter High School cheerleading squad was there to help the battered neighborhood. Coach Tasha Thies said the relief mission is close to her heart.

In 2002, she lost everything to a tornado.

“When stuff like this happens, we want to help,” she remarked.

Thies heard there were still individuals camping out in the park despite the lack of utilities and sprang into action. The group of approximately 20 students climbed carefully over rubble and peeked in houses to see if anyone was in need of supplies.

“These girls are great,” Thies expressed.

They are one group of many who have shown up this week to help where they can.

Earlier in the week, members of Lighthouse Church of Dexter were on site to cook lunch for anyone working at the site. A hasty decision was made the night before they arrived because church members had asked “How can we help?” The same was true of employees from Poplar Bluff RNR Tire, who set up and grilled hamburgers for lunch one day.

“We just hope to ease a little of their burden,” Candace Johnson of RNR Tire said she began grilling hamburgers on the hill above the trailer park’s destruction.

The burdens are heavy for those who once called the small community home, but despite the loss of homes and possession there was no loss of life here. Instead, there are many stories of close calls and survival.

The Harmony Hills trailer park was a ghost town Wednesday morning apart from a few residents gathering what was left of their possessions into a U-Haul van. Tony Sousan helped Vietnam veteran Andy Elliott load a mattress box spring into the cargo space.

The day’s high winds threw trash, insulation, and paper all around. The park’s street sign stood at the foot of the hill nearly wrapped around its pole, a stark reminder of the tornado’s seemingly unstoppable gusts. Sousan’s trailer was one of the few still left on its foundation.

He pointed to the fact it was anchored to concrete whereas most of the homes were simply on blocks. Sousan was at work when the twister hit, but his wife was at home. She rode out the storm in the trailer.

“She was scared to death,” Sousan pointed to ripped siding, absent shingles, and a damaged porch. “Ours is minimal compared to everyone else,” he commented.

His truck, still in good condition due to being parked elsewhere, sat adjacent to his wife’s gnarled SUV. The carport which formerly sheltered the vehicles ended up blown away into the next house over.

“Our house is very lucky,” Sousan noted.

Regardless of the condition of his trailer, the park is still without power and running water. Sousan and his wife are staying in a motel until they can figure out what’s next.

The owners of the complex, Jerry Moore and Joe Scobey, are still unsure if the park will ever re-open. The utilities are shut off to the location for the next six to eight weeks for safety reasons, Sousan informed.

“We don’t know exactly what we’re going to do. My heart breaks for all my neighbors,” he affirmed.

Just across the street sat Andy and Kathy Elliott’s home, bucked several feet from the blocks it formerly rested on. The couple, along with their beloved dog Sasha, only had three minutes’ warning before the storm hit.

“We were in bed,” Andy clarified.

“We rode it out,” Kathy chimed in.

The Elliotts got up, but it was too late to take shelter. Andy grabbed Sasha just as the window across from him broke from the strong winds, knocking him and the dog back.

“There’s not a scratch on me,” he added, gesturing to the entryway. “That door was shaking like paper on a fan.”

As they set about packing what they could save, that same door was held on by a makeshift tie crafted from a cable TV wire.

“This is all going to be scrapped,” he informed.

Kathy said the Department of Veterans Affairs is stepping in to assist in their search for temporary and long-term housing. At the moment, the couple is living in a motel.

“It’s all still settling in,” Andy looked around his scattered belongings. “It’s called survival instinct and getting through it in the moment.”

When asked if they would return to the trailer park if possible, Kathy emphatically replied, “Put it in caps: NO!”

For the foreseeable future, however, the couple hopes to stay in Poplar Bluff.

“Let’s not do this for another 70 years,” Andy joked.

Additional reported by Editor Donna Farley.