Tornado victims sift through their lives

ELM CITY -- The tornado that killed a boy near this Wilson County town and a woman in Kenly early Saturday morning also displaced more than 100 people and 16 of the Pittman family's dogs.

"I can't have children, so the dogs are like my babies," Crystal Pittman said as she sat outside the two-story rented house she shared with her mother-in-law, Mary, and all those pooches. The dogs -- 10 adults and six new puppies -- are temporarily at the Wilson County Animal Shelter.

"We don't know where we're going to live, much less where the dogs are going to live," Mary Pittman said. "We have to find a place that will let us take all the dogs."

Friends and volunteers filed in and out, removing the family's belongings from the ruined house. The storm had taken off part of a second-story wall and a section of roof on one side, and a huge oak had split and crushed the other side. The Pittmans wanted to get their things out ahead of windy weather predicted today.

"I don't want to take no chances," Mary Pittman said.

The Pittmans had no renters' insurance.

Neither did the grandparents of Joshua Wiggins, the 11-year-old whose body was found under a mattress in the rubble of the home where he lived with them on London Church Road outside Elm City.

The house was ripped off its foundation and scattered across an adjoining cotton field. The largest piece that remained was one almost-intact wall; everything else looked like it had been smashed with a hammer. By Monday afternoon, it had been sifted through by volunteers looking for anything that could be saved.

A makeshift memorial stood at the spot where Joshua's body was found -- a cross made of two pieces of white wood that looked like they might have been part of a porch railing. It was held up by a pile of bricks and surrounded by muddied red silk roses and tiny trucks and other toys found in the debris.

"They lost everything they had," Gov. Mike Easley said of the couple, who had just finalized their adoption of Joshua. The boy's mother, their daughter, was murdered in 2005.

A fund has been set up to receive donations for the couple, who were hospitalized with injuries after being thrown from the house.

"Their physical injuries are not near as serious as their psychological ones," said Wilson County Emergency Management Director Gordon Deno.

Lillian Jernigan wasn't injured in the tornado, but she stepped on a nail Sunday while helping her husband, Curt, pick through his flattened garage. Monday, she limped or walked with crutches, talking with friends, family and an insurance adjuster who had come to survey the damage at her house and the one next door.

There was nothing left resembling a house where the Jernigans' neighbors, Maryland and Argiro Gomez, used to live. Maryland Gomez was killed when the mobile home was picked up and torn apart; her husband survived with a punctured lung and broken ribs.

Lillian Jernigan said she didn't want Gomez to come back and see the remains of his home. The Jernigans, too, were taking their belongings out of their damaged house and going to stay somewhere else. They are hoping that Gomez will stay with them until he figures out what to do next.

In all, the governor's office said, state damage-assessment teams counted 11 homes destroyed in Johnston County, and 15 damaged. Five businesses also had major damage. Debris cleanup in the county is expected to cost $250,000.

In Wilson County, the teams found seven homes destroyed and 26 damaged. Two businesses also were damaged. Debris removal is expected to cost $250,000 in Wilson County as well.

Easley spokesman Seth Effron said the state would immediately begin applying to the federal Small Business Administration for an emergency declaration that would make victims in both counties eligible for low-interest loans to help pay for repairs. In addition, Easley said, the state has some grant money it can use for disasters, and the American Red Cross has been providing emergency aid.

Easley expressed sympathy to the families who had lost a loved one, and said that as he flew over the path the tornado had taken, he was "amazed that there were no more injuries."