Charlant Davis and his wife, Evelyn Johnson-Davis, were about to have dinner with the family in their home on Shillington Drive in Berkeley on Friday night when they heard the warnings.
“We didn’t make it to the basement,” Evelyn said. “It hit, glass blew everywhere and it was over. “
The house, home to the couple, their five children and a grandchild since 2001, is tucked in at the end of the Shillington Drive cul-de-sac off Airport Road, just east of Lambert St. Louis International Airport – the scene to historic damage caused by the EF3 tornado that slashed through St. Louis on Good Friday evening. From the point of the Shillington Drive, Charlant and Evelyn are able to walk past dozens of homes of their neighbors that today are severely damaged or uninhabitable.
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| Evelyn Johnson-Davis and Charlant Davis |
To get to Shillington Drive, and it’s tiny offshoot Shillington Court, you take Airport Road and turn right on Wulff Drive to arrive at the subdivisions where many of the homes have been passed down from generations. Neighbors are family, and moments – good and bad – are widely shared. Today, neighbors freely crisscross the streets to capture video and compare notes on the damage.
From the rear of Charlant and Evelyn’s house, a wooden rail from a kitchen drawer pierces through the back wall of the home, just below the broken window over the sink. In the front, an uprooted tree has pinned Charlant’s van to the driveway. The family will be without electricity for a long time, and they will not be alone.
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| Wood pierces through the outside of the house. |
“Our home is fine but the electrical lines are just pulled straight out from the back of our home,” said a resident on nearby Fay Drive. “We won’t have electricity for weeks, or that’s what we’re hearing.”
Gladys Stannard, Lev Reynolds and Judy Jehling are volunteers from the Disaster Assessment Team of the St. Louis Chapter of the American Red Cross, and today – as well as in similar disasters – they walk the streets to measure the amount of damage to homes and the area as a whole. Their reports are helpful to the Red Cross in determining aid, funding and services.
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| Lev Reynolds, Judy Jehling and Gladys Stannard conduct damage assessments in Berkeley, MO |
Unofficially, they also serve as counselors to residents who come outside to tell their story, look for answers and hope for an encouraging word. On Myrick Avenue in Berkeley, a family asked them to come around the back of the house to see damage that probably couldn’t have been fully appreciated from the street.
“Do you see that garage? It’s from the house three doors down, and now it’s in our backyard,” said the daughter of Jim Lobster, the homeowner. “It’s not good. We’re not good.”
“We heard the warning, then the electricity went out and I went to get my flashlight,” Lobster told the DAT team. “By the time I got the flashlight, it was like this. It happened in a second.”
The Lobster family, and scores of other residents clearing debris from their property, were encouraged by the DAT team to visit the Red Cross shelter stationed inside the Maryland Heights Community Center. Lev moved about the neighborhood with a stack of cards with Red Cross information, dishing them out as a political candidate would distribute campaign literature.
Residents whose homes had been battered, or lost totally, made an easy connection on the waterlogged streets of Berkeley with Gladys, Lev and Judy. Sometimes residents were uncertain what it was the Red Cross would, or could, provide them at this time, but they knew they had a friend.
“Please tell our story,” Evelyn Johnson-Davis said. “We want people to know how bad it is here, because around here sometimes we’re not the first people everyone thinks about. But we’re sure glad the Red Cross is here.”
Jim Woodcock is the Senior Vice President and Partner, Fleishman Hillard International and a volunteer and Board Member for the St. Louis Area Chapter.