Texans Assess Their Losses, Amid Rubble

Dawn Syganowski stood Friday in a pile of rubble that was her home and looked at the sky-blue walls of her infant daughter’s room, now buckling under the weight of tornado-strewn debris.

She said she spent weeks painting a floating princess and fluffy white clouds on those Sheetrock walls, a reminder of the overwhelming job of rebuilding ahead of her because of Tuesday night’s tornadoes in North Texas.

“I’m just glad my kids are too young to remember this,” she said with a trembling voice, leafing through a jumble of baby items for the match to a tiny pink slipper.

Her house, now missing a roof and most exterior walls, must be demolished, and Syganowski was thankful her family was not home when the twisters hit, killing at least four people in the area.

But first, the family was joining with their neighbors in a feverish race to collect their shredded belongings as storm clouds loomed.

One of the two tornadoes ripped through downtown Fort Worth just after the evening rush hour Tuesday, while another damaged more than 1,200 homes in Arlington and Grand Prairie. Among the 33 buildings damaged in Arlington were a Texas Department of Health building, a post office and a Bell Helicopter plant.

Insurance adjusters estimated the damage in Tarrant County is at least $450 million. A fifth person was missing and presumed dead.

In Kelly Anderson’s Arlington neighborhood Friday, city workers used huge front-end loaders to scoop masses of wallboard, brick and trash off frontyards and into dump trucks en route to a city landfill.

Hundreds of volunteers had converged on the neighborhood, offering bottled water, boxes and words of encouragement. The area will be cordoned off by police throughout the weekend.

Anderson carried boxes from his toppled home to a moving truck holding the promise of a new start. He said he had to focus on the work ahead and not on the loss of his home.

But he kept searching for the one item he said was irreplaceable: a Christmas tree he decorated each year for his father’s grave.

“That’s something I need to find,” he said. “I hope it’s not destroyed.”

Anderson’s wife, Toni, said she was distraught that no financial aid had been offered to the couple, who fear their insurance won’t cover their property loss. Additionally, the couple have taken unpaid leave from their jobs and were worried they cannot afford to rent an apartment while continuing their mortgage payments.

“Reality has just set in,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

Gov. George W. Bush declared Tarrant County a disaster area, and teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration arrived Friday to help state leaders prepare paperwork for federal assistance.

“It’s important that the federal agencies respond quickly,” said Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), who toured damaged homes in Grand Prairie on Friday. “Very few people have insurance that will cover everything.”

In Fort Worth, workers have been removing thousands of window panes damaged in eight skyscrapers. Officials said Friday that they will halt the removal of glass this weekend so workers can enter their offices and salvage materials.

The glass removal was expected to resume Monday.