Tar Creek The lead and zinc-rich underground area became more than 800 acres polluted with mill and sludge ponds, contaminated groundwater and surface water and countless other environmental problems. The 2008 tornado put the final nail in Picher's coffin. More coverage
Severe Weather Safety Everything you would need to know about staying safe in severe weather.
By John Clanton, The Oklahoman
Monday morning, Picher was quiet. Winds that still whipped through the area on Sunday had died down. A moor-like fog rose from a lagoon where bodies left lifeless by the Saturday's deadly tornado were found.
EPA test toxicity of Picher air
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency did tests to see if a tornado that ripped through Picher on Saturday may have kicked up dangerous amounts of toxic dust.
Chris Ruhl, on-scene coordinator for the EPA, said the agency doesn't know if the tornadoes caused a public health risk by kicking around the dust. Workers will conduct studies to see what the impact is, or if there is one.
Results of testing are not yet available.
On Saturday, tornadoes tore through Picher, a town that once was a world hub for lead and zinc mining. Mountains of gravel mine waste still tower around the town. The gravel, which locals call chat, can be dangerous to humans because it contains traces of lead, which is a neurotoxin.
The storms appear to have tossed the gravel around town.
John Hutchison, who lost his house to the storm, said the tornado "sandblasted” his home with the chat.
The gravel is sprinkled on the ground in the areas hit by the tornado.
Over the years, the EPA has done work to clear Picher of chat. The agency removed dirt from yards that tested high for metal content.
Workers replaced the dirt with fresh soil.
PICHER — Bruised and battered, with her feet bandaged like cocoons and her ankles looking like they'd been splattered with ink, Kim Johnson returned Monday to her home in Picher for the first time since tornadoes tore through her town.
Some walls were standing, but most everything else was flattened. Now she's one of 12 family members staying in a two-bedroom trailer. She doesn't know what she'll do in the long term, but she knows she won't rebuild here.
"Picher's gone," she said.
The victims of Saturday's tornado — which killed seven people here and
18 in Missouri — face a unique barrier to recovery as they search through the rubble of their homes and check on loved ones who've been hospitalized or killed: They can't go back.
Picher — before the storm and now — is in the middle of a government buyout. The area was heavily undermined over the decades, and studies have shown houses are susceptible to collapse. Mountains of gravel waste a hundred feet high, laced with heavy metals, surround the town.
In the past, local children have tested high for lead, which is a neurotoxin.
Everyone who wanted to be was on their way out anyway before the tornado hit.
Those who stayed are in a terrifying and heart-breaking limbo.
Rebuilding would be foolish, they say. But if they don't, their hometown is gone forever with no proper farewell.
Two days after the storm, many said they're still in complete shock.
"I don't think you can heal from something like this," said Picher Mayor Sam Freeman, whose house was destroyed. "It's hard for me to think about it without crying, just because so many people are so devastated."
The enormity of the storm's damage wasn't revealed to the public Monday morning, since police and patrol officers had barricaded much of the town. The search for the dead stopped, and officials and residents turned their attention to assessing the damage.
Emergency management officials said they counted at least 101 homes that were completely demolished by the tornado; and they're not finished searching. John Sparkman, head of the Picher Housing Authority, said 295 homes were leveled. He based that number on a comparison between aerial photographs taken before the storm and on-the-ground observations.
It's difficult to say how many people were in town when the tornado hit.
Before the federal buyout began, about 1,000 people lived in the Picher, but more than 200 homes have been vacated since the buyout program started — a fact celebrated by many people, who said death tolls otherwise would have been much higher. Before the buyout, there were about 700 occupied buildings in Picher, according to city officials.
Monday morning, as residents filed into town, Picher was still.
Winds that still whipped through the area on Sunday had died down. A moor-like fog rose from a lagoon where bodies of tornado victims earlier had been found.
First light on Monday fell on trees stripped of their bark; a red truck on its side and pinned to a tree; bicycles stuck high in battered trees, their tires wrapped like licorice sticks around naked branches. House frames were scattered like toothpicks flung from their box.
Among the rubble, residents began searching for their belongings.
Margaret Reeves, 58, sifted through the wreckage of her home — a Polaroid photo album, a broken VHS tape labeled "Matt & Julie's wedding," an empty frame, a "Lord of the Rings" statue, a deck of playing cards.
Her things were scattered on both sides of a street. Items from neighbors' homes — a size 9 cowboy boot — ended up in the mix.
Reeves, sobbed as she pulled a yellow photo album from the mess.
"It's our wedding pictures," she said, opening the album and then closing it right away. She looked away and put her arm over her face.
"It's just our pictures and stuff. ... We know there's nothing else."
Reeves said she considers herself one of the luckiest people in town because she's alive. Her cousin died in the storm, she said, but she and her husband, Roger, are safe and already had been living with a family member who needs medical care.
"We really loved this old place. It was just to the point where it was unsafe to live here anymore," said Roger Reeves, her husband. "Now (the decision about what to do with the house) has been answered for us, I suppose."
Many of the displaced people from Picher are staying with relatives, and they don't know how long they'll be able to go on that way because they don't know what money will be available to them — or when.
Patricia Williams, 62, sat in her nightgown at a Red Cross relief station in Picher. Her arm was in a sling — she needs surgery soon — and her back is covered with bruises. When the tornado flung her into the air, carrying her a block away, she said she wasn't afraid. She knew things would be all right.
But looking to the future terrifies her.
"I'm staying with my sister right now. After this, I don't know," she said, trailing off. "I don't know."
The south half of Picher was mowed down by the storm. But Picher's ghost-town of a main street and school complex were not hit.
Orval "Hoppy" Ray's home was among those not badly damaged in the storm. Ray stayed in a motel Sunday night but said he will move back into town and live there soon.
"Hell, I ain't got no place to go, and it's just me anyway," he said.
He said the storm was "another nail in the coffin" for the town he loves.
As for Johnson, she'll continue in the trailer with 11 family members for now. Johnson said her destroyed home was "totally different" from what she remembered the last time she saw it, just after the storm on Saturday.
During the storm, she curled up in a ball, covering up her head with one hand and grabbing onto her husband's boot with the other, "because I didn't want to get separated," she said. The wind pulled her legs into the air. Debris slammed up against them, making her battered feet feel like Jell-O, she said.
Monday, as the 32-year-old went through the rubble, "the sky was clear, but (at) every little wind I thought it was coming back," she said.
Johnson can't sleep. She has nightmares about the storm. She grabs her children and clutches them to her side while she tries to sleep.
And in the day, she cries.
"I don't really know what I feel. I know what happened ... and I know it's bad, but I don't know why I cry," she said. "I can't be alone. I know that."
