Charlene Longwith has lived in Cleveland, Tennessee, her entire life – in the same house, to be exact.
She was raised there with five sisters and a brother, and stayed in the house on 10th Street after her mother died nine years ago. Now she lives there with her partner and her dog, Georgia.
Late Sunday night, as they got the warning that a tornado had touched down in Chattanooga, in Ooltewah and in Collegedale, she made her way down the stairs. A tree from the back yard followed her down the hallway.
Longwith’s home was one of at least 50 in Cleveland that were destroyed or severely damaged after an EF3 tornado touched down in the Tennessee Valley, leaving at least 11 dead.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Longwith said. “It’s home. It’s the homestead.”
And she’s not sure if or when she’ll be able to rebuild. Many in the area of Bradley County where the storm hit are low-income or elderly and many, like Longwith, don’t have homeowner’s insurance.
Bradley County Mayor Gary Davis was walking some of the hardest hit streets Thursday, like he has every day since the storm passed – checking in with folks and asking what they need, talking to volunteers, passing out gift cards. Davis makes these visits alone. He knows the area – knows the community and its people.
“This is a group of people with a lot of pride and who are used to taking care of themselves,” Davis said. “Every day, we are doing what we can to try to find out what their needs are.”
At least 50 families took advantage of emergency housing provided by the American Red Cross the first night after the storm, but the Red Cross only provides housing for three days.
Davis said that he still has about 30 families that need long-term housing because their homes are unlivable. In some cases, multiple generations lived together in the same house or had trailers on the same lot.
When tornadoes hit in 2011, many of those affected were able to stay with relatives or had homeowners insurance. This time it’s different, Davis said. He and Cleveland’s city mayor, Kevin Brooks, are working with the Salvation Army to find solutions and are waiting for federal emergency declarations for Hamilton, Bradley and other surrounding counties affected by the storm.
Unlike in Hamilton County, where many residents weren’t even aware of the impending tornado, most in Bradley County had warnings. But warnings only go so far in a community with a lot of mobile homes.
Danny Ramsey, 65, and his wife, Virgie Ramsey, 64, took cover between two walls near the bathroom in the trailer Danny Ramsey has lived in since 1978. Both of their neighbors’ trailers were destroyed.
“His trailer flipped,” Danny Ramsey said, pointing to the property to the right. Several members of one family, including a 2-month-old child, were inside the trailer, which now lies in pieces, scattered across the lot.
“The Lord blessed us all. We have lost a lot, but our lives were spared,” Danny Ramsey said before turning away to hide the look of pain on his weathered face. “It was a miracle.”
Right now, the Ramseys are staying with family, who only suffered some downed trees. They have received help from volunteers who are pouring into the area to pass out meals, cut down trees and pile debris along the road. The Ramseys plan to rebuild.
Down the street, Cindy Grissom and her partner Anthony Underwood don’t know where they’ll end up. The homes around them were destroyed, and a teacher had to help them escape after the storm. Wreckage blocked their front door.
“We’re lucky, our rent-man had an empty mobile home that we could stay in,” Grissom said. “He did ask me, if he could rebuild it, did we want to come back and I said, ‘Yeah, I like the area.'”
Grissom and Underwood, with their children and grandchildren in tow, helped their neighbor Terry Swafford dig through the rubble of his home Thursday, trying to find what they could salvage – a stack of old records, medicines from the bathroom cabinet, the car key for Swafford’s brand-new car.
He wasn’t home when the storm hit, but his cousin Brian Bankston was. Now Bankston’s in the hospital with a broken pelvis – one of six people in Cleveland hospitalized due to injuries sustained in the storm, according to Taylor Woodruff, spokesman for the Bradley County Sheriff’s Office.
But still they’re lucky, Swafford said. If he had been home, he and Bankston would have been up, sitting in the living room, and would probably both be dead, he reckoned.
Plus, he has insurance.
County and city officials, along with U.S. Rep Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tennessee, and Hodgen Mainda, commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance, were also on the ground Thursday. They did a drive-through of affected areas and spoke with affected residents.
“You can see it in pictures and when Mayor Brooks and Mayor Davis tell us the severity. Words cannot really tell how bad the damage was sustained,” Mainda said.
The declaration, as Davis knows, would open up individual assistance options for those who might not be covered under an insurance policy.
Fleischmann also noted that though no lives were lost in Cleveland, the area will feel the impact of the disaster just as strongly as Hamilton County.
“The thing that stands out sadly is that these are people who are less than affluent,” he said. “These are people who don’t have much, these are people who when they suffer a loss like this, it’s a lot harder for them to get back on their feet economically and otherwise.”
The congressman said he encourages those who can to donate to the Salvation Army, the Red Cross or other reputable relief organizations.
Contact Meghan Mangrum at mmangrum@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6592. Follow her on Twitter @memangrum.