Lisa Chandler talks Thursday about a memorial that will be built at the DeKalb County Schools Coliseum to honor victims killedby the April tornadoes last year.TO HELPDonations for the memorial can be made to the DeKalb County Long-Term Community Recovery Committee, P.O. Box 396, Rainsville, AL 35986, by visiting the memorial’s Facebook page “DeKalb County Tornado Monument — Memorial” or going to http://www.rainsvillealabama.com/tornado-memorial-pg1.html.
RAINSVILLE, Ala. — Those first days burn into Lisa Chandler’s memory — the heaps of debris, the splintered trees across the landscape and the grief of the families.
The week after April 27 tornadoes killed dozens of people in DeKalb County, Chandler rarely left the Rainsville funeral home that she and her husband run as families came to make arrangement and remember their loves ones.
“I just cried with them,” Chandler said. “We were not prepared for something like that.”
Altogether, 35 people died in DeKalb from the tornadoes or storm-related events.