BY RITA McINERNEY

Pat Sawyers and her family survived the Palm Sunday tornado although the killer wind blew down several trailer homes and houses around them on Salocoa Ridge.

Because of the widespread death and destruction in Alabama and nearby Georgia counties, it took several days for federal officials to catch up with the damage in this northwest corner of Cherokee County several miles outside Waleska.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency added Cherokee County to the disaster list on April 8, making affected residents eligible for federal disaster relief.

“We’re here,” Mrs. Sawyers can only say, with quiet gratitude to her God. “We’re lucky compared to our neighbors.” Her 20-year-old trailer was declared a total loss by FEMA.

The powerful wind shifted the trailer on its cinder block base and blew tree trunks onto the roof. One tree pierced the ceiling in the area where her foster children sleep. Another tree broke the roof in the bathroom. The underside of the trailer was heavily damaged.

The Sawyers had no money for insurance on the old trailer. It’s difficult enough making monthly payments on their land.

Only the kitchen and living room of the trailer are what can be called livable now. Timothy Nixon, 18 and the youngest of her own four children, couldn’t use his bedroom and is living with friends in Canton.

The trailer next to the Sawyers’ on Wild Azalea Trail was vacant when the tornado struck. So was the house across the road. Both were destroyed, their debris scattered over earth and bushes.

Nearby is the wreckage of a new 14-foot trailer that was blown to bits along with a small house just below it. The families were able to flee unharmed. A tea kettle, a bag of Christmas glitter, a small chair, remind an observer that there was pre-tornado life here.

A short distance up on Wild Azalea Trail, two Victorian-type frame houses took damage. Higher up on Salocoa ridge, several houses were destroyed.

Standing where her neighbor’s trailer had stood, it’s easy to see the damage in this Blue Ridge Mountain area, although hard to comprehend the awesome force of nature that caused it. In the distance is the light colored debris of a dwelling. Down the mountainside, hardwood trees lie helter-skelter across the ground, looking as fragile as spilled matchsticks. The path of the destructive wind is quite distinct.

That day, the Sawyers had just returned from attending Palm Sunday Mass at Our Lady of LaSalette Church in Canton. Tim had been dropped off at work, the hungry children appeased at a food stop.

Mrs. Sawyers was in the trailer with the three foster children, Jeffrey, 11 months; Deanna, turned two in February, and Chris, eight, when “the sky turned black and a high-pitched noise like a train,” frightened her. It began to hail. Lightning flashed constantly at ground level.

Her husband Tom “saw it coming down the road and he was screaming for me to lie down.” Later, he said the double-funneled tornado appeared to come from separate directions, its tremendous wind suctioning up everything in its path.

As soon as they could the family fled the ridge in search of shelter. They drove to the National Guard armory in Canton only to find it closed. Next they tried the elementary school in Waleska and were to told to come back about five that evening. They did so and stayed until about 11:30 when the Red Cross put them up in a motel. They stayed at the motel two nights.

Now they are trying to get their life back to some semblance of order. There are scores of split trees down on the slopes of their land that have to be sawed and stacked. Children’s play equipment stands undamaged in the front yard although the log playhouse had its roof blown off.

When parishioners at Our Lady of LaSalette heard about the Sawyers’ misfortune, a donation box was set up in the church. Over one thousand dollars was raised on Easter Sunday and the following two Sundays.

Brother Bob Belliveau, MS, took a check to Mrs. Sawyers and was impressed by the woman he had just known heretofore as a weekly churchgoer.

“She’s an exceptional person,” he remarked. “She wasn’t afraid to call different agencies for help. She’s a go-getter.”

Her son Tim he knew as a teenager willing to volunteer his time for reactivating the parish youth group.

Brother Belliveau, pastoral associate at the parish, believes people “rallied round because it was one of their own” in trouble and was “elated at the way the parishioners responded.”

Ellen McCoy, president of the St. Vincent de Paul Society Particular Council, has known Pat Sawyers since she lived in Woodstock and was a member of Transfiguration parish. “She has a special concern for children in bad circumstances.”

“She needs people power, she really could use some help in cleaning up her yard,” Mrs. McCoy noted.

She believer her friend has the “strength to persevere and survive. St. Vincent de Paul will be there for her when she needs us,” Mrs. McCoy promised.

Even before the tornado struck its population, people were leaving the ridge, Mrs. Sawyers said. There is a feeling that the county doesn’t realize they are up there. There is no shelter program or warning system. The school bus stop isn’t convenient for the children.

“Most people up here have gone,” Mrs. Sawyers acknowledged. But she’ll stay. “I have no choice.”

She admits to being more fearful now. “The other day when it got cloudy and dark and started to rain I was frightened.”

She’s accustomed to the wind. “It’s a strong, powerful force on the ridge from October to May. You can hear it howling and whistling all night long.”

She is hopeful that Habitat for Humanity can help her rebuild if FEMA approves financial relief. That money, she said, would go to Habitat to add a sturdy house to the two-room addition constructed with its own foundation.

Her dream home, she added, “has to have a basement of some type for shelter.”