Sad Start to a New Year

This post is a little late, but I have pictures... so it is worth posting!

Before December 31st, 2010 I didn't even know there WAS a Cincinnati Arkansas. But a deadly tornado struck through the town, just West of Fayetteville and it was all over the news. There were three elderly people who died in that tornado. And the pictures they showed on the news of the tiny farm town were so devastating. It was a terrible way to bring in the new year for the people who live in Cincinnati.

One Saturday in January, my dad had the idea to go volunteer with the tornado clean up. I will admit, it was not the way I had imagined spending one of my last Saturdays before school started back up. But we loaded up; My dad, mom, sister, me and Dylan, and we drove out to Cincinnati.


The town is so small... so there were only a handful of houses we saw that were "untouched." But most were torn apart, and left us speechless.


We had to sign in at a church, and they assigned us to a chicken farm that had been completely torn apart. There were four chicken houses that were swept away into a huge... ditch, for lack of a better word. Actually, I think there was a creek at the bottom of the "ditch"


But we couldn't see it because of all the debris. When I heard "chicken houses" I didn't know what to think. I thought there would be dead chickens everywhere. Thats a problem for me, I can't even look at a Tyson's chicken truck pass me in traffic. I can't even look at road kill. Luckily, all the chickens were gathered and buried weeks before. Dylan got that information from the owner of the chicken houses, and I was thankful.




The things we saw in the trees were amazing. It made the severity of the storm so real.


This is where the chicken houses use to be


And there were many piles of trash bags full of debris by the time we left.

If you live in the NWA area, I want to encourage you to volunteer for the people of Cincinnati. I hope they're staying warm and surviving the snow storm.

(((On a lighter note, don't forget to check out my stories on Dylan in the post below! )))
STAY WARM!