By Marie Mulvenna

The telephone-answering device in Dalton’s St. Joseph’s parish concluded with a simple message: “Please pray for the victims of the storm.”

A weary Father John Kieran, pastor, later spoke of the devastation left in the wake of a the tragic tornado which churned through nearby Resaca killing one parishioner and leaving others hospitalized. “It was like a war,” Father Kieran said as he described the terror-filled night and the stream of casualties arriving at the local hospital.

Gabriel Torrev, in his early 20s, and his wife Pamela, 18, were staying with her brother, Lee Salazar, and his family at the Pineview Trailer Park. They had planned to move this Friday. But, Cabriel Torrev was buried Monday morning from St. Joseph’s Church.

Lee Salazar’s, wife, Yolanda, was operated on Sunday for a broken jaw and their two-year-old daughter Mona is hospitalized with a broken leg and faces surgery for head injuries. Lee Salazar is living with a brother right now. He has no other home at present. His trailer was demolished in the tornado and his salvaged possessions include a “few pieces of clothing, some pictures, and a few toys belonging to my two daughters.”

Pamela Torrev is in fair condition at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga. Salazar says sadly of his sister: “All she does is cry.” The Torrev had been married six months and had been living with the Salazars since then.

The day the storm hit Lee was at work. His wife Yolanda later described the terror, relating that the sky darkened ominously in a matter of minutes. She heard a terrible loud noise and they all ran into one room of the trailer, huddled together on the floor. Yolanda began to pray, her words growing louder and louder.

The next thing she knew she was looking up at the sky. The funnel had hit, ripping apart the trailer and hurling all inside into the vacuum of destruction. She concluded her prayer: “Lord, thy will be done.” Then, there was deathly silence.

Gabriel was dead on arrival at the hospital; his wife was admitted in critical condition.

For two days Father Kieran went without sleep or rest, visiting Yolanda in the hospital. A nurse called him aside, requesting that he not tell her that Gabriel was dead. “But she already knew,” Father Kieran replied. “She had known right after the storm hit that Gabriel and his wife could not move. She knew then that he was dead.”

Lee Salazar and his family have lived in the trailer park for two years. They were hit once before during a storm when a nearby utility pole fell against their trailer. “I’ve been planning to move,” he says quietly, “but I never got to do so. Now I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Over 100 parishioners attended Monday morning’s Mass for Gabriel Torrev and the ladies of the parish served lunch for over 60 persons following burial.

The 25 homes at the trailer park are extensively damaged. Many residents were injured, with 50 seeking medical aid following the storm and seven persons were killed in that area. Scores of families, like Lee Salazar’s are wondering what the future will bring. Today they just don’t know.