Editor's note: Last week, Centre resident Cindy Plummer sent us her account of the day she spent volunteering and offering assistance to the victims of the April 27 tornado. We are happy to reprint her story here.

Dale Reese and I were among the many volunteers who walked inside the post-tornado disaster relief center at the former Centre Middle School gymnasium, headed by Charles Hincy, on Friday, May 6, 2011.

Realizing there was more than enough help in the gym, Dale decided there were not enough tornado victims coming in for help. She and I had discussed this earlier and realized there must be some families in the county who did not know the center was available. When she announced she was going to drive into the affected areas to see if anyone needed help I said to her, “There's no way are you going by yourself”.

We gathered some information forms and started out the door. Someone suggested we go to the County Administrative Building to get more copies. While at the probate office, Dale decided we need to talk to Judge Melvyn Salter, just to be sure we would not be breaking any laws by going out into areas hit by the tornado. He gave us his blessing and called WEIS Radio to announce that we would be out in the community.

Being fairly new to Cherokee County, I was not familiar with some of the communities. Dale was raised here and is familiar with area. (I also soon learned she knows everyone!) We started out driving south on Highway 9, then turned toward Hokes Bluff on County Road 71. We then turned left onto CR-19 and drove several miles to Knighten's Crossroads.

Once there, we started seeing trees down and damage to houses and trailers. We stopped at several homes to talk to residents to ask if they needed help, or knew anyone who might need anything. We found that most people were afraid to leave their homes for fear of looting; others had no means of transportation. Because radio signals are weak in the area and cell phone service non-existent, none of the families we talked to even knew about the disaster relief center until we told them.

Dale knew that the road we were on went into Piedmont, but she was not sure about CR-67. We could see that some of the destruction from the tornado was along that road. We turned left and the further we drove the more damage we saw. As we drove and prayed, we came upon a severely damaged home.

We honked the horn. The homeowner came out and we proceeded to tell him we were in the area checking on folks and that we had information he might need.

We could see he and his were injured. He had three broken ribs, along with other injuries. They told us they were not aware of the tornado heading their way. He told us the sound was not like a freight train, but rather a roar like nothing he had ever heard.

Before they realized what was happening, the man said, he went to the door to close it. That was when the tornado hit, sucking him out the front door and across the front yard. We asked what his community is called, and he said Gnatville.

There was no power or water in the area the day we were there, though Cherokee Electric linemen were already putting up new poles. We stopped to talk to a one employee, then continued on CR-67 a bit further until we came to CR-6, where we came upon another Cooperative worker Dale knew.

He told us it was OK to continue up the road, and that there were several families with lots of damage. The workers cleared a way for us. What we found was frightening. 　

We parked and walked up, telling them we had information where they could get food, clothing, furniture, etc. The first man we talked to was a cabinet maker from Piedmont. He was there helping out. He had bought a camper trailer with his own money, so the family would have shelter.

From there we went back onto CR-67 and found another family we had been told about. They had been fortunate that someone allowed them to move into an empty house. They had a generator and some food, and were all very grateful to have survived.

We left there and drove to the Goshen community to talk to another couple who had suffered severe damage to their home. Most of their neighbors had lost everything. They too, were grateful to have their lives.

One gentleman told me that, the day after the tornado, there were so many people coming by taking pictures and looking that the telephone people could not even string wires across the road. And he said not one person so much as waved, or stopped to see if anyone needed any help. I found myself repeating: “This kind of thing brings out the best in some people and worst in others.”