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The View From Old Eli Road in Toney 05.02.11 A view of damage to a neighborhood at Old Eli Road in Toney. Watch video

TONEY, Alabama - As a City of Huntsville fire truck driver, Bret Martin is always ready to roll to help someone in need.

So it was good to see other firefighters rolling in Monday to help Martin, whose home on Bollweevil Lane was badly damaged by Wednesday’s deadly tornado.

“They’re here for me, and I’d be there for them any time,” said Martin, who rode out the storm with his wife, Teresa, their 5-year-old son and dogs Neo and Trinity.

Martin was grilling dinner on the back porch when his wife noticed insulation and shingles falling from a yellow sky. The family took refuge in a bathroom, but Martin couldn’t resist taking another peek outside.

When he cracked the front door, he saw the house across the street splintering apart.

Then the twister came, punching holes in Martin’s roof, clawing away the back porch and popping all the windows.

“Longest 15 seconds of your life,” Martin said. “But nobody’s hurt and we’ve got insurance, so we’re good.”

Several firefighters from Huntsville Local 1833 spent Monday helping Martin and his neighbors with the massive cleanup. Some drove straight there after battling an early-morning fire at Payless Tires on Oakwood Avenue.

“If you can’t help your own, who can you help?” said Steve Butler, vice president of the local firefighters union. “We’re going to take care of our brothers.”

A different tornado that plowed through Marshall County on Wednesday demolished the Buck Island home of Huntsville firefighter Jason Scheer, he said.

Martin’s neighborhood off Carters Gin Road near Sparkman Middle School was obliterated by the same twister that roared through eastern Limestone County and Harvest. Around the corner from his house, Old Eli Road is in ruins.

Two-story brick homes erased to a sad heap of wet insulation and broken two-by-fours. Cars crumpled like aluminum foil. Reminders of happier times strewn as far as the eye can see, all caked in mud: a postcard from Miami Beach; a necktie made in London; part of an artificial Christmas tree; a 1996 Huffman High School volleyball trophy.

Sorting through the rubble will take time – and lots of willing hands.

Wendell Thompson, pastor of Huntsville’s Owens Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, was among nearly 800 volunteers who spent a muggy Monday assisting with the cleanup.

Volunteers going into affected neighborhoods must sign in daily at the Huntsville First Baptist Church Christian Life Center on St. Clair Avenue, across from the downtown library. Registration begins at 9 a.m.

Thompson came out to help Jerry Coffin, whose two-story brick home on Old Eli Road imploded on top of him. Coffin returned to the neighborhood after three days in the hospital and has been sleeping in his smashed Mazda Tribute.

“We knew he needed someone to look after him,” Thompson said after digging a hole to bury rancid meat found in the rubble. “Neighbors helping neighbors – that’s what it’s all about.”

Thompson offered to open his own home to Coffin, but Coffin prefers to stay in the car – one of his few still-recognizable possessions. His sister, Josephine Neal, said she is determined to get Coffin away from the wrecked neighborhood so he can rest.

“He’s a big Teddy bear, but he’s stubborn,” Neal said Monday. “I’m just going to have to be the mother who pulls him by the ear.”

Volunteers searched all afternoon for a green pair of pants containing Coffin’s identification. When the pants still hadn’t turned up an hour later, some workers resumed lugging pieces of the home to the curb: a carpeted staircase; the circuit breaker; a dented air conditioning unit still spewing Freon.

While the spirit of volunteerism was palpable Monday on Old Eli Road, there was also an ugly reminder that disasters bring out the worst in some people.

A Times photographer noticed a man in a gray tanktop rifling through a dresser drawer amid the rubble. Officers later found a jewelry box that he had stashed in a demolished Nissan Altima.

Sgt. Manuel Simmons with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office was overheard scolding the man, 24, and his 10-year-old accomplice. “You got no business being here, you got no right being here.”

Because the homeowner was not around to press charges, Simmons was forced to let the man go with a warning.

With so much strangeness still in the air five days after the tornado hit, volunteer Charlotte Madison, a Spanish teacher at Sparkman High in Harvest, said she wishes county school leaders would consider canceling final exams.

It’s likely that some Sparkman students were left homeless by the tornado, and Madison said at least one teacher’s home was destroyed.

“These kids are going to need to talk about what’s happened,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to focus on school.”

Complete coverage from The Huntsville Times

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