DENISON, Texas — Residents and disaster response officials in northern Texas and Louisiana said Wednesday morning they feel fortunate after surveying damage following tornadoes and straight-line winds caused by a low-pressure system that moved across the South Monday night.

North Texas took the brunt of the storm as two confirmed EF-1 tornadoes skipped across the cities of Denison and Collinsville, damaging an estimated 50 homes and destroying seven. The narrow path of the tornadoes, which averaged between 125 and 200 yards wide and two miles long, spared many homes said meteorologist Tara Vudzik of the National Weather Service.

Denison Fire Chief Gordan Wager said he’s grateful there were no injuries or fatalities. More than 80 members of the city fire, police, and public works departments worked throughout the night in intermittent rain, barricading roads that were flooded or covered with debris, and responding to emergency calls. One elderly resident was rescued from her home, which he said sustained minimal damage.

No churches in the two cities have requested aid, but pastor Michael Mattil of Grace Lutheran Church said two members of his congregation were affected, and volunteers spent yesterday and today helping remove limbs and debris.

“They were lucky,” he said. “Homes just two doors down were obliterated.”

He said because of the swift response by the American Red Cross, which spent Tuesday and Wednesday making drive-by assessments and distributing water, meals, and tarps, no further assistance has been needed, though his church will remain on standby.

“We’ve put a few people in motels, but for the most part, residents are staying with their homes,” said Cathy Howard of the Texoma Red Cross. “The majority of the area hit involved brick homes and residents who had insurance, so we’re not doing a lot of financial help at this time.”

She estimated 90 families will need some form of assistance, but said neighbors are working together to help with cleanup.

“All the people we’ve encountered are taking care of themselves and helping each out,” she said. “It’s kind of phenomenal.”

That was the case in nearby Collinsville, which is a predominantly rural area of Grayson County and a place where everyone knows one another.

Kelly Taylor-Forgar, emergency services director of the Central Louisiana chapter of the Red Cross hopes she never again experiences what she went through Monday night. Red Cross volunteers reported 42 families affected and four homes destroyed in La Salle and Rapides parishes. Meanwhile, their colleagues found themselves in need of assistance as well when high winds slammed trees into their office and tore away part of the roof. Taylor-Forgar, who was in the building at the time, said even though she grew up in Texas and spends her days assisting families touched by natural disasters, it was frightening to witness a storm in progress.

“We saw three tornadoes touch down — two near the building and one in the distance,” she said. “It was the closest I’ve ever been to a tornado.”

The National Weather Service has not yet confirmed the damage as tornadic, but for the families left picking up the pieces in Texas and Louisiana today, the final assessments make little difference.

MICCO, Fla. — Lorraine Finch stares nervously at the blue tarpaulin covering her 85-year-old mother’s roof. It’s not raining today in southeastern Florida, but as winter sets in, nighttime temperatures are dropping into the low 20s, and the worn plastic does little to shield the home from the elements. It took less than a week in August for Tropical Storm Fay to take 36 lives and leave $180 million damage throughout the state, but recovery is moving far more slowly, frustrating both residents and the organizations trying to help.

Approximately 19,000 people in 27 counties have applied for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other federal programs, but many — like Finch — say the help they’ve gotten is taking far too long and is barely adequate to begin even the basics of recovery.

“The ceiling is leaking and ready to come down; the floors are warped and rotted; the carpeting is gone; the house has shifted off its foundation and isn’t even level; it’s a mess,” Finch says. “I’m on total disability, and my mother’s on Social Security. We just don’t have the money to fix this place.”

She says her mother, Helen Nauf, received $3,000 from FEMA towards the estimated $38,000 in damage, but additional help was denied because the manufactured home was deemed to have suffered the additional losses due to Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne in 2004.

“You can’t even put a roof on the house for $3,000,” she says.

Nauf’s health problems exacerbate the need. She uses a breathing apparatus twice a day, but it’s not enough to ward off the mold spores. Respiratory issues have kept her in waiting rooms and hospitals over the past three months, and her daughter fears the consequences of continuing to live in the damaged home.

“I lost my dad two years ago,” Finch says. “She’s all I’ve got left.”

Disaster response organizations are frustrated by the slow progress as well. In the beginning, the problem was widespread flooding. Fay dumped as much as 27 inches of rain in some areas, and little could be done but watch and wait as the waters gradually receded. In some places, water still stands.

“Fay sat on top on top of us for five days straight,” says Keith Heinly, director of case management for Brevard Long Term Recovery Coalition in Brevard County, which took heavy impact. “We got rain after rain after rain.”

He says immediate response involved merely trying to deal with the massive amounts of water. The Salvation Army distributed 10,000 cleanup kits, while other groups gave out flood buckets and covered roofs in an effort to protect what remained, but it will be several more weeks before every roof has been adequately covered. If repair is delayed too long, the work that has been accomplished will have to be redone as tarps begin to disintegrate.

Executive director Liz Lee says faith-based disaster response organizations like the United Methodist Committee on Relief, United Church of Christ, Southern Baptist Disaster Relief, and the American Baptist Church have been instrumental in that process, especially UMCOR.

“UMCOR has worked with us extensively, doing a wonderful job as usual, and has been a lead partner,” Ms. Lee says. “They had a team here last Thursday and Friday tarping, removing dry wall, and scrubbing mold off walls.”

Still, the coalition reports 778 active cases, with only 367 closed. Limited funding is snarling the process. Because Fay was considered “only a tropical storm,” it was overshadowed by Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, dividing resources.

“There just isn’t a lot of money for Fay,” says Marilyn Swanson, director of Disaster Recovery for the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church. “Some of these areas don’t typically flood. It was unanticipated.”

FEMA has distributed $26 million to residents, and an additional $3 million to local governments, but officials say that’s only a fraction of what will be needed statewide, and there’s no estimate as to how long it will take for distribution of further funding.

Meanwhile, Brevard Long Term Recovery Coalition is writing proposals, hoping to receive a $100,000 grant to cover administrative costs. Until then, little can be done to move from case management to recovery. Lee says, at that point, faith-based organizations will become critical.

“A major component of our funding is the faith-based groups, and donated materials make the dollars stretch even further,” she says. “I was very impressed with FEMA and the state response, but that doesn’t change the fact that these people don’t have the money to fix their roofs. It’s their only place to live, and somebody needs to help them. Every time we have a storm, you’re going to see more and more damage. “We, as a society, are going to have to come up with some answers for these people.”

Disaster response organizations like Church World Service, which is trying to raise money for a building to house disaster preparedness services and function as a community shelter in future disasters, stand ready to help with those answers once Florida is ready to begin the next step in recovery. Heinly says they’ve gotten “a real positive response” from Lutheran Disaster Response, United Church of Christ, Mennonite Disaster Services, and others. As the coalition waits for funding, organizers remain in constant contact with faith-based partners and others, holding daily teleconferences and regular meetings. Still, Florida is a long way from even beginning to recover from Fay’s wrath.

“There’s no way to change that,” Heinly says. “We have to wait until we get what we need in order to make it happen.”

Finch says she hopes it won’t be much longer before she begins to see progress being made. “If we get another freak storm, I don’t know that this house is going to stand.”

COLUMBUS, Ind. — The rental trailer wasn’t in great condition before the muddy rivers spilled their banks in Columbus, Ind., but it provided a home for the family of five. The parents worked in the fields and their baby played happily on the kitchen floor in the evenings, surrounded by the chatter of the two elder siblings doing homework and the smells of supper being prepared.

Then summer came, and with it came flooding rains — 11 inches within seven hours. Levees broke. Dams failed. Much of the Midwest was left underwater, with places in Indiana seeing the worst flooding the state had experienced in more than a century.

The trailer leaked, walls were damaged, but the family had no place else to go so they stayed. But as the weeks passed following the flood, the insulation refused to dry, and mold began creeping up the walls. Drinking water in the trailer park, polluted during the flood, remained unfit for humans, forcing the family to use its already limited funds to buy fresh water. The refrigerator stopped working and rats and roaches invested the trailer. Still, the couple worked, doing their best to recover.

When it rains, it pours.

Then the husband injured his leg and had to take time off from his job. His wife went to the field alone. When he came to pick her up, he learned they’d both been fired. Their boss told her all Mexicans were “liars.” It didn’t matter that they were legal U.S. Citizens. It didn’t matter that they were already struggling.

Every day, they checked their doorless mailbox, hoping for the $1,500 FEMA check that would go towards a new trailer. They began to worry it had been stolen. School was back in session, but the children’s clothes had been ruined in the flood. There was no money for backpacks or school supplies. The family’s problems were compounding.

During the day, the children stayed inside, hidden from authorities. Diapers were getting low, and finally there were none at all, just the one the baby had on. The food was nearly gone and the family worried what they would do when it was all gone.

A knock on the door changed everything.

A needs assessment team from Christian Reformed World Relief Committee’s Disaster Response had stopped by the trailer as part of a process to identify flood survivors who still needed help. Larry Van Tongren said the team was “appalled” by the conditions. Within hours, the family had food and clothing vouchers, school supplies and diapers. Fresh water was provided — not just for them, but the other 49 families still living in the trailer park.

By the following day, arrangements had been made for them to move to a motel for six days until decent housing could be found. A case manager assigned to them began coordinating other resources. The husband needed medical attention. Both parents needed stable employment. They needed a long-term recovery plan tailor-made just for them.

It’s a new day in faith-based disaster response. The faith community, long-known for its cadres of volunteers who provide immediate clean-up and long-term rebuilding support, is now also focusing on assessing the appropriate needs of disaster survivors. Through a needs assessment process, faith-based teams are attempting to bring a holistic approach to disaster response and long-term recovery. Groups like the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), and Lutheran Disaster Relief (LDR) are leading the way.

It is a people-centered approach, aimed at determining not only the survivor’s initial needs but the resources necessary to facilitate complete recovery. Canvassing neighborhoods and talking with residents identify problems that can be quickly addressed, as well as other issues that may require help from multiple disaster response organizations and social service agencies. Navigating the myriad of paperwork can be daunting, and survivors easily fall through the cracks every year, either giving up on the process or not receiving the help they need.

“Education, work, finances — after a disaster, one or more of those is broken,” says Cathy Earl, of U.S. Disaster Response for UMCOR. “We’re sensitive to the whole person. We don’t just see the house, but the family’s spiritual and emotional needs.”

She says faith-based disaster response organizations have an advantage over federal programs; as they are not held to income caps and other federal requirements, they can be more creative in their approach, helping people who otherwise might not qualify for assistance.

Case managers are typically drawn from the local community, giving them knowledge an outsider may not have, but it takes training, says Bill Adams, director of U.S. Disaster Response Services for CRWRC.

Volunteers undergo a basic or week-long course, depending on the time they’re able to devote and the role they wish to fill. Increasingly, that training is being done by professional consultants, who teach everything from basic paperwork to cultural sensitivity, the symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and ways to conduct compassionate interviews while establishing trust.

“Many survivors who start out with a low level of depression and are almost ready to give up, but once they see that people care about them, it starts to turn around,” Adams says.

Sometimes, it’s the helpers themselves who need help. Linda Reed Brown, former associate director of Church World Services National Disaster Response, says following Hurricane Rita in Texas one of the case managers was facing his own battle. After work each day, he returned to the damp, moldy house he was sharing with his mother, using every penny he could make to try to help her. Finally another volunteer discovered what was happening in his life and helped move his mother to safe housing.

Since Hurricane Katrina, the needs assessment and case management process is increasingly being used, allowing faith-based disaster response organizations to tap into a nationwide database as well as smaller local databases, increasing efficiency and maximizing resources while decreasing duplication and waste. Because of Katrina’s scale, the number of international and national volunteers, and the scattered diaspora of survivors, centralized information systems like Coordinated Assistance Network (CAN) and Katrina Aid Today allowed faith-based organizations to open dialogues about what case management means to each group.

For some organizations, a case manager may simply find housing. For others, like UMCOR, the case manager may not do everything, but he or she will coordinate, or at least be aware of, all aspects of a family or individual’s recovery plan.

Case management is something that’s been quietly done for three decades, but as it moves to the forefront, a new question is arising: Should case management be standardized, creating a common set of methods, criteria, and training?

Proponents like Liz Lawrence-Bowen, Senior Officer of Interagency Strategic Initiatives for CAN, say by moving disaster response organizations to a common platform and case management tool kit, they’ll have more time to spend with survivors, easing their burdens more effectively. But Bob Arnold, Associate Director for Capacity Building and Evaluation for Church World Service Emergency Response Program, says standardization has its shortcomings, namely that case management’s main strength — volunteers — will be diluted if local case managers are replaced by professionals.

“Case managers work with families and individuals to develop their own personal plans and needs, trying to find assistance that doesn’t necessarily exist in an established program,” Arnold says. “It’s not just a case worker referring people or saying you have to do this or that. To have a pro come in from the outside and do that work is really problematic.”

But at the end of the day, the responders all agree on one thing: They want to go wherever they’re needed and provide whatever assistance they can to help survivors, whether that means short-term assistance or long-term recovery.

“I can’t speak for others, but for UMCOR, definitely it’s our mission and faith that motivates us to give and serve,” Earl says. “We don’t proselytize, but I still think that plays an important role. It’s not just bricks and mortar, but what happens out there.”

Arnold agrees. “God has called us to do this. There are people in the world who have needs, and we’ve been blessed to help them with. We don’t go in preaching, but very often people just need someone to pray with.”

Tonight, thousands of families across the United States are still recovering from Hurricanes Katrina, Dolly, Gustav and Ike. There are families recovering from floods, fires, tornadoes. And in virtually every state, faith-based volunteers are knocking on doors, asking questions, giving answers, and helping survivors on their journey towards tomorrow.

Only a few lonely cars were heading west Sunday morning beneath a canopy of gnarled oaks along Scenic Highway 90 in coastal Mississippi. To their right, stark reminders of Hurricane Katrina — bare slabs where homes once stood, damaged streets which once led to vibrant downtowns, trees still festooned with insulation and tarpoleons meant to protect buildings that no longer exist. To their left, a steady snarl of traffic snaked its way eastward as residents from Louisiana and Mississippi fled the wrath of Hurricane Gustav, expected to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane Monday morning southeast of Louisiana in Plaquemines Parish. At 6 a.m. EDT, the storm’s center was located about 85 miles south of New Orleans and was moving northwest at 16 mph, as powerful winds lashed the largely deserted Louisiana coast. These sustained winds of 91 mph (146 kph) and gusts of 117 mph (188 kph) were measured in Southwest Pass, Louisiana, around 4 a.m., the hurricane center said.

Things were a bit calmer Sunday, but Saturday night, barely controlled panic reigned as people flooded stores for supplies and took to the highways, slowing interstate traffic to a crawl. Steven Grabert, of Thibodaux, La., said he and his wife were alarmed when Gustav rapidly gained strength Saturday afternoon and were glad they left early — it took them six hours to make the 138-mile drive. With most hotels along the Mississippi coast filled to capacity early Saturday morning, weary travelers had no choice but to continue, hoping to find lodging farther north.

By nightfall, the few hotels that remained open filled quickly. In between fielding guests’ questions at Motel 6 in Gulfport Sunday afternoon, Victoria Hawkins said she was surprised only 67 of the motel’s 98 rooms were occupied, but it was a clear sign that people remember the harsh lessons of Hurricane Katrina three years ago and are taking the storm warnings seriously.

For everyone here, gas was another major concern as stations quickly ran out of fuel and began turning customers away. Ronald Aldridge, traveling from Hammond, La. with his family of eight, stopped at one of the few gas stations to rebuild in Pass Christian, Mississippi, which was devastated by Katrina and is still struggling to recover. Last time, the Aldridges fled to Lafayette, Louisiana, returning to find their home swept away. Today, they’re headed to Destin, Florida, hoping they fare better with Gustav. “It’s getting a little too close,” Aldridge said. “We didn’t want to stay through it this time.”

An estimated two million people have fled the coast, but some residents decided to wait it out, especially as forecasts shifted Gustav’s landfall farther west. Monica Spurlock, manager of the Pizza Hut in Waveland, Mississippi, brushed her hair back from her eyes and gazed at the Gulf as she filled five gallon containers with gas. She said she didn’t leave during Katrina, and isn’t leaving this time. Her employees, however, aren’t taking any chances. Only two of the 22-member crew elected to remain on call through the storm.

In Gulfport, many businesses boarded up and closed by 10 a.m., while others, including Wal-Mart, closed shortly after noon. The early closings caught most people by surprise and sparked a brief frenzy as people rushed from store to store, trying to find last minute items. Janette Mederos was among nearly 200 people who crowded into Fred’s, one of the few stores still open by 2 p.m. Though many shoppers were visibly frustrated to find empty shelves where batteries, candles, and flashlights once stood, Mederos took it all in stride, loading her cart with tiki torches and charcoal.

By late Sunday night, only a few cars remained on the highways in coastal Mississippi, but most people, like Aszlee Davis and her family, who traveled from New Orleans, had settled in for the evening. With her hotel door flung open, Davis relaxed on the balcony, enjoying the breeze as it occasionally gusted to a mild 15 mph. Still, she admitted she won’t sleep much while waiting for Gustav — she plans to keep an eye on the latest news updates. “You just don’t know where they’ll go,” she said. And so residents along the Gulf Coast watch, and wait, praying for the best and hoping against the worst in this still bruised, still storm-battered region.

Skies remained stormy and tropical storm force winds from Hurricane Gustav continued to pummel the three counties of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Monday night. A threat for isolated tornadoes remains, and a curfew, enacted Sunday at 10 p.m., will stay in place until the weather improves and damage-assessment teams can determine whether it’s safe for evacuated residents to return to their homes and businesses to re-open. But Gustav has certainly weakened and, as of 4 a.m. CT Tuesday, its top winds had dropped to 35 mph, making it a tropical depression after a long run as a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Hancock County took a heavy hit from Hurricane Katrina, with cities like Pass Christian, Bay Saint Louis and Waveland almost erased from the map. Today, three years later, the county is still struggling to recover, and Gustav has dealt yet another devastating blow. County public information officer Jim Keller said this storm’s impact took them by surprise. “Wind damage is at a minimum, but we’ve got areas with 12 to 14 feet of flooding,” Keller says. “We were thinking eight or nine feet.”

Although people in low-lying areas were given a mandatory evacuation, Keller says several hundred chose to stay behind despite a cut-off time to change their minds. On Monday night, as winds continue to gust to 50 mph, three search teams are trying to reach residents in need of rescue. Food and ice distribution points are expected to be established on Tuesday. Still, the words on everyone’s lips are: “It wasn’t another Katrina.”

Jim Pollard, public information officer for neighboring Harrison County, says he remembers a chilling moment during Katrina when officials at Hancock County’s Emergency Operation Center — believed to be on safe ground — called him on the phone and told him the building was rapidly filling with water. “They all wrote numbers on their arms with indelible ink, then listed their names and numbers on a sheet of paper, put it in a Ziploc bag, and tacked it to the roof,” Pollard says. “We were taping final messages from them to their families.”

Pollard says it’s too soon to tell how hard his county — which has a population of 175,000 and encompasses the cities of Gulfport, Biloxi, D’Iberville, Long Beach and Pass Christian — was hit by Gustav. Teams are just beginning to assess the damage, and it will be several days before a real picture of the hurricane’s impact emerges.

In addition to Gustav’s 12-foot storm surge, rain has been heavy, and three rivers in Harrison County are expected to crest above flood stage tomorrow, further complicating matters. But Pollard says things went smoothly for the county thanks to good planning and a new initiative by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, which coordinated with the state department of education to transport 539 people by school bus to shelters in Jackson, Miss. at no charge. Late on Sunday night, the county opened nine area schools, bringing the total number of sheltered residents to just over 1,300.

In addition to new plans to protect the people of Harrison County, a new Katrina-inspired pet initiative also drew praise. Misty Velasquez, director of development for the Humane Society, said a pet-friendly shelter opened this year, sparing many animals the fate of those left behind following Katrina. In addition to the usual assortment of dogs and cats among the 44 animals being sheltered tonight, there are also rabbits, a parrot and a Gray-Banded King snake.

Officials in both Hancock and Harrison counties said they hope to allow residents to return to their homes soon but the situation remains too unstable at the moment to have an idea when that might be possible. “This event is ongoing, and we’re not out of the woods yet,” Pollard stressed. “We’re not going to send assessment teams out on a large scale until it’s fully safe.”

MOODY, Ala. – He’s won an Emmy and dozens of other awards, but for many people in central Alabama, he’s just “James,” the meteorologist they trust when severe weather strikes. They clamor to meet him. They make jokes: He’s great with tornadoes, but not so good with snow. A storm comes and there’s James, interrupting your favorite program. He starts off wearing a suit and tie, but when he rolls up his sleeves, people know it’s serious: They run for cover.

After 29 years as a meteorologist in a state that’s no stranger to severe weather, James Spann takes his role seriously, especially this year. Alabama had 24 tornadoes in February alone, surpassing the yearly average.

In the limited toolbox mankind has to protect against tornadoes, national forecasts help. So do local sirens and weather radios, which send out warnings from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But, by most accounts, a good local weatherman can do a lot to prevent calamity, too, and Mr. Spann is considered one of the best at what he does.

For one thing, he is always at the station, ABC 33/40, which serves 23 counties in central Alabama, during a storm. While some stations provide similar coverage, many just break in with periodic reports, or run a scroll updating local forecasts. But Spann provides up-to-the-minute street-level warnings honed by what national broadcasters can’t offer – several decades learning every crook in Alabama’s back roads.

It is, in fact, another local joke – Spann’s use of everything from country stores to mailboxes to pinpoint storm paths. But there’s a purpose to his method, giving the jumble of radar polygons and velocity signatures real-life relevance.

Spann says he was never one of those weathermen with blow-dried hair and a toothy grin who merely pinned felt suns on a board. As a certified meteorologist, he understands much of the science behind severe weather, and when he’s not standing in front of the lens talking about it, he’s out in the community educating local residents. Many people credit him with saving lives over the years.

“I call him ‘Super Spann’ because he does his best to protect us,” says Olympia Hewitt, a Tuscaloosa County resident who watched in horror Dec. 6, 2000, as Spann stood on-screen – sleeves rolled up, wearing his ever-present suspenders – and warned residents of Bear Creek Trailer Park to seek shelter from a tornado. Eleven people died that day, but residents believe the toll would have been higher without his coverage. “He talks like he’s right there,” Ms. Hewitt adds, “telling you what’s happening.”

• • •

It can make a long day even more grueling. Spann, a lover of numbers and a stickler for details, wakes up at precisely 4:52 a.m. and often returns home at midnight after speaking at schools, uploading weather videos, writing blog updates, providing forecasts for 25 radio stations nationwide, conducting three local broadcasts, and teaching evening storm seminars. He’s energetic on air, even when exhausted.

“I don’t think weather should ever be boring,” he says. “I owe people that.”

Tonight, he’s conducting a seminar for a crowd of 600 at Bethel Baptist Church in Moody, Ala., outside Birmingham. Ten years ago, the church was leveled by a tornado. Spann’s goal is more than telling people when they’ll need an umbrella. He hopes to foster awareness of storm safety, eliminating habits like too much dependence on warning sirens or television.

“Tornadoes can happen in the middle of the night and times when the TV is off or folks are watching cable or satellite channels,” he says. “All I can do is keep preaching the message: Get a NOAA weather radio receiver in every home, business, and church in the state.”

But TV coverage does have its place. Chris Vaccaro, a spokesman for NOAA, says sophisticated computer models and National Weather Service warnings are critical, but local meteorologists offer a familiar face that government entities can’t provide. “They can build rapport and have a positive influence on how the community receives critical weather information and appropriately reacts,” he says.

Jay Prater, chairman of the broadcast committee for the American Meteorological Society, believes this is a big part of Spann’s success – his tireless work and incessant tutoring about severe weather. “Twenty years ago, TV was different,” says Mr. Prater. “You had time to do different things. Now there’s so much you have to do, yet Spann seems to find the time.”

At Bethel Baptist tonight, there’s no doubt Spann and his team are popular. Fans arrive two hours early, hoping for autographs. Eight-year-olds collect bio sheets like baseball cards. Spann takes it in stride, but admits it makes him uncomfortable. “I’m pretty low-key,” he says. “I never took a class in TV or radio, never had the fluff, never looked like a ‘TV guy.’ Young reporters now are out to make a name for themselves, but they’re not the story; it’s the people.”

Interns say he drives this point home by taking them to the heart of Americana – the local Wal-Mart. Spann watches how the would-be meteorologists talk with people and compares it with their on-air performance. The best meteorologists, he says, aren’t coming out of college with telegenic smiles. The best are real people telling a story to other real people.

Charles Springer is one of Spann’s typical viewers. He says Spann helps people understand the incomprehensible and react without fear. “I had a friend who was in Dallas during a tornado warning,” Mr. Stringer says. “He was able to tell people where the tornado was because of the hook echo on the radar, explaining the inflow patterns of the storm. Someone asked him if he was a meteorologist and he said, ‘No. I’m from Alabama.’ All thanks to [what he had learned from] James Spann.”

• • •

Spann’s passion for education is rooted in who he’s dealing with – not just viewers but neighbors. He grew up in Alabama. As a child, he had an “electrifying fascination” with storms. In high school, he was sending eyewitness ham radio reports, humbled by events like the April 3, 1974, “super” tornado outbreak, which killed 350 people. “Seeing all that – people so badly hurt – changed my life,” he says. “I thought, these people should have known this was coming.”

He studied electrical engineering at the University of Alabama before earning a broadcast meteorology degree at Mississippi State University. He took his first TV weather job with Tuscaloosa’s WCFT in 1978.

Spann is straightforward when dispensing advice. He tells people not to waste time opening windows during tornadoes to equalize air pressure. He reminds them to use a common household item – a bicycle helmet – to prevent head injuries. He is also unusually blunt. Last week, a thunderstorm spawned three tornadoes in central Alabama, killing one resident. For the first time in 11 years, Spann’s team didn’t provide continuous coverage. “I take the blame,” he wrote on the ABC 33/40 weather blog, which gets 100,000 unique visitors a day. “We run long schedules most folks wouldn’t believe, but that’s no excuse for an office with four meteorologists.”

Despite his hectic professional schedule, he finds time to coach Little League and teach Sunday school. As tonight’s seminar draws to a close, he packs his laptop and hurries to make the 10 p.m. newscast before a 30-mile drive home. His wife and two children are waiting.

Tomorrow morning, at 4:52 a.m., he’ll mull over his day before heading out the door. He’s judging a biscuit bakeoff, and there’s excitement in the Alabama air – he’s predicting snow.

JACKSON, Tenn. – It’s a cold, blustery morning here in western Tennessee, the sun high and bright, the sky a preternatural robin’s-egg blue. The kind of halcyon day reserved for picture postcards. The kind of perfect day depicted in glossy campus brochures.

An entrance sign to Union University blinks a cheerful welcome: “Get to know Union.” Just beyond, less than 1,000 feet away, lies a cruel irony – Union’s heart and soul laid bare, the lives of its students revealed in rainbow-hued paper and clothing clinging to winter-bare trees.

Nearly a week has passed since last Tuesday’s storm system ripped through the mid-South, leaving a deadly trail of destruction across five states, including Tennessee, where the Baptist-based liberal arts school took a direct hit from an EF-4 tornado with winds topping 200 m.p.h. In awed voices, students run through the numbers and count God’s blessings: 3,200 students, 1,200 on campus when it struck, 13 trapped, 51 injured – no fatalities. The buildings can be replaced, and many will have to be – 40 percent of the dorms were destroyed and 32 of the 33 buildings dotting the 290-acre campus sustained an estimated $47 million in damage.

It’s the third time in less than a decade tornadoes have left Union picking up the pieces and trying to move forward. But the air is light today as students gather in the sunny yellow rooms of the Chi Omega house, now a makeshift command post. The shock is beginning to wear away, leaving an appreciation for life’s smaller pleasures.

For Renée Jones, assistant director of recruitment, a mop is the best thing she’s seen all week. “This is fabulous,” she says, dumping bottled water on the muddy linoleum and swabbing it to a dull shine. So much of the campus was atomized by the tornado that it’s impossible for students and volunteers to keep their shoes clean as they trudge back and forth, trying to salvage whatever they can from the destruction.

Ms. Jones says it’s not about cleanliness but a deeper mission the faculty shares – providing calm and comfort amid chaos. While the university remains in “essentialist” mode, addressing fundamentals like housing and coursework, the staff slowly shifts from survival to caretaking, facing a new challenge – how to hold a campus community together when the campus is gone and the community is spread in hotels and homes across the city.

•••

David Dockery perches on the edge of a chair, elbows on knees, a red Union jacket warming his drawn face and tired eyes. He was on campus when the tornado struck around 7 p.m., meeting with two deans to discuss what’s always on his mind – Union’s future. Since he became president in 1995, Dr. Dockery has pushed an ambitious 25-year master plan. He stares at the floor as he admits the plan was almost halfway complete, with $60 million in renovations over the past decade. This tornado was “15 times” worse than the previous two, he says, made more cruel by its impact on the students’ personal lives. Since then, his only thought has been how to give back what was taken – clothing, papers, a place to live, an education.

“I made as many decisions in the first 100 hours as I normally make in 100 days,” he says, rubbing his eyes. He’s slept only 16 hours in the past week. It’s not only the tangibles keeping him awake – how to retrieve student valuables, resume classes, provide textbooks and computers and everything required to run a campus – it’s also the intangibles.

The college had to cancel an annual conference for high school and middle school students, along with revenue-generating summer sports camps, a worship symposium, and a Valentine’s Day banquet for west Tennessee pastors. The school’s 62 clubs, from wrestling to Bible study, must get back up and running, offering small communities where students can feel a natural affinity and the healing balm of the Union spirit.

The basketball team is borrowing another school’s gym – their own filled with bags of belongings salvaged from the rubble and neatly tagged. Dockery hopes to have the athletes playing at home by Feb. 21. And then there are things like driver’s licenses, bank cards, and passports. Little pieces of plastic so necessary to function in daily life.

For a moment, Dockery seems bowed by the sheer enormity, then he squares his shoulders and a faint smile lights his eyes. There were no deaths, and that’s something. A thousand people volunteered to help the very next day, and that’s something, too. Union will rebuild what was destroyed and resume the master plan, more slowly perhaps, but always, always moving forward. “I don’t think we’ve lost hope, and I don’t think we’re Pollyannaish,” he says. “Our deep faith will carry us through.”

•••

At Duncan Hall, a girls’ dorm, social work professor Kristie Holmes is on a mission of her own – salvaging something, anything, from each student’s room. She’s young, barely older than the students she teaches, and this is her first year as a professor. She doesn’t have to be here today, or at least her job doesn’t require it, but like the colleagues who dig alongside her, no other task is more important.

The wind whips her blond pigtails, chafing her cheeks as she dons leather work gloves. She pauses at a broken window and peers inside. Workers marked this room “done,” condemning it and moving on, but they’re men, she says. They only retrieved electronics. Women want other things – letters, teddy bears, diaries, “things I’d be really happy to see.” She picks over mud-covered clothes and DVDs, rifles though drawers filled with cosmetics, and scans sagging bookshelves.

“One of the journals I found was really wet,” she says, separating a pile of sodden greeting cards. “It started out saying, ‘I don’t know how I would have gotten through this day without this journal.’ It’s a reminder of where that girl’s been, and it’s important to get it back to her.”

In some cases, the rooms were swept clean by the storm’s fury, and she has to search harder. “Even if it’s just an umbrella, at least that’s something,” she says, carefully bagging one.

Back at the Chi Omega house, accounting major Sherita Smith chatters happily as she clings to her mother, her mirth belying the terror she experienced as she and her roommates stepped from the bathroom where they’d taken shelter, only to find themselves outside, the rest of their apartment demolished. She’s heard someone found her belongings and she’s hoping two things were saved – a red and white stuffed monkey and a folder. She’s an aspiring writer, and the slim binder is filled with poetry, short stories, and essays.

Her cellphone is gone, along with the phone numbers of her friends. The Commons building, where she used to watch movies on Saturday nights, is gone, too. Now, like her classmates, she just wants the scraps of paper that tell who she is and what she hopes to become.

It’s a simple want, a basic need. But at Union University, where the familiar is now the hauntingly unfamiliar, it’s everything. A symbol of hope. A marker of faith.