Wed, Jul 09 2008
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Published May 14, 2008 11:17 pm - PICHER, Okla. — Elizabeth Wood isn’t sure where she’s going to go after her home in the Mineral Heights neighborhood was leveled by Saturday’s deadly tornado. Picher cited in federal disaster declaration By Greg Grisolano ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com PICHER, Okla. — Elizabeth Wood isn’t sure where she’s going to go after her home in the Mineral Heights neighborhood was leveled by Saturday’s deadly tornado. “Where do you go from here?” Wood asked after she left the lot at 308 E. Eighth St. where he home once stood. “It’s just all gone, all gone.” An antique bathtub and a couch are all that she recognized amid the rubble. “I could’ve dealt with it burning. I could have dealt with it being tore down,” she said amid tears. “But to see this. “My husband was raised on that lot where that foundation is sitting,” she said, pointing to another ruined home nearby. “His father built that place. My grandfather built this one. It’s where me and my husband started going together.” Six people died in Picher when a tornado ripped through Northeast Oklahoma and Southwest Missouri on Saturday. An additional 16 people died of storm-related injuries in Jasper, Newton and Barry counties in Missouri. A seventh Picher resident died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in a generator accident in the wake of the storm. Preliminary reports estimate the damage caused by the EF4 tornado that tore through Picher at more than $1.5 million in Ottawa County alone, according to Frank Geasland, Ottawa County’s emergency management coordinator. Countywide, more than 140 homes, including 114 in Picher, were destroyed by the tornado, he said. On Wednesday, President Bush issued a disaster declaration, meaning that Ottawa County residents whose homes were destroyed or damaged in the storm will be eligible to receive individual assistance, including grants for temporary housing and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses. The community is in the midst of a federal buyout because of the legacy left by lead and zinc mining. At a news conference Tuesday in Picher, Gov. Brad Henry said federal aid would be used to relocate — not rebuild — homes affected by the disaster. Wood said her family received about two-thirds of the funds from its buyout offer in March and was living in a home in Miami when the storm hit. She said she plans to pursue the remaining funds from the buyout and to purchase the home in Miami where she is living. “The place we’re in right now, we’re going to go ahead with the contract,” she said. “It’ll take us 30 years to pay it off, but at least we got a roof over our head and a place for our children to go.” 
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