By Melissa Dunson

mdunson@joplinglobe.com

In a moment, Bill Lant’s appetite was gone.

Lant had just seen what was left of his feed store and bridal shop at Iris Road and Highway 43 on the television news as officials announced it would become the emergency command center and temporary morgue for the tornado-recovery effort.

“Needless to say, I wasn’t able to finish my sandwich,” Lant said.

That was Saturday night. The television crews now are gone, as well as the high-ranking government officials and most of the sightseers. But Lant, his wife, Jane, and his neighbors are still there, picking up the pieces and making plans to rebuild.

The Lants are not alone. Although still awaiting a federal disaster declaration for Newton County late Thursday afternoon, county officials said preliminary estimates indicate that the total damage in the private sector could be at least $30 million, while the cost to the public sector could be about $4 million.

Newton County Presiding Commissioner Jerry Carter said county officials reached those estimates based on damage surveys that have been conducted by members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the State Emergency Management Agency.

“We think that is a fairly conservative figure,” Carter said of the $30 million estimate.

Those assessments indicate 141 homes were destroyed by Saturday’s tornado, and 51 were damaged to the point that they are uninhabitable, Carter said. An additional 185 homes sustained relatively minor damage, while 80 were “affected” by the storm in some way, he said.

Nine businesses were either destroyed or damaged to a major degree, while another nine reported minor damage and three were affected in some way by the storm.

The figure on damage to private homes and businesses does not include the damage estimates for items including cars, sheds, barns, fences, utilities and livestock, Carter said.

Alive and well

Lant’s Country Feed Store and Lant’s Bridal Garden sat in that location for 10 years until Saturday. There’s no use looking to the past, Bill Lant said. The place 1.5 miles down the road where the businesses previously were located also was destroyed.

But Lant had a smile on his face Thursday as he moved lumber, wedding dresses and dog food into large burn piles.