AP — Sue Sigle was hoping for the government to offer more money for her home before moving away from this pollution-scarred town. Then the tornado came.
As she began the long job of salvage Sunday, Sigle kept a smile on her face, noting that she was fortunate to be visiting family in Missouri when the massive twister hit Saturday night, killing at least six people in the northeastern Oklahoma town.
"It's OK," Sigle said. "I'm OK with everything. The Lord is going to take care of anything. ... I was going to move anyway. I guess I'll just have to move sooner."
That sense of inevitability appeared to grip residents as they picked through the remnants of their homes. The lead and zinc mines that made Picher a booming town of about 20,000 in the mid-20th century closed decades ago; leftover waste has turned the area into an environmental disaster and a Superfund site leading to government buyouts of many residents.
A joint state-federal damage assessment team is to begin preliminary damage assessments Monday after the deadly tornado ravaged the town, leaving about 150 injured in addition to the dead.
The team will include officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Small Business Administration and the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, according Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the state agency.
Residents were allowed back into the town Sunday to search for any salvageable personal property. Non-residents are not allowed entry to the town with residency verified by the address on drivers licenses, she said.
Numerous law officers from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and several nearby cities and counties along with the Oklahoma National Guard were patrolling the area to prevent looting, Ooten said.
The tornado — spawned by storms that also killed several people in Missouri and Georgia — could be the final straw for those 800 or so residents who have been reluctant to leave, said John Sparkman, head of the local housing authority.
"I think people probably have had enough," he said. "This has just affected so many lives.
"There's just nothing to build back to any more."
Many families have recently moved, taking advantage of state and federal buyouts.
Some residents, like Sigle, were waiting for better buyout offers before their homes were damaged.
Gov. Brad Henry, who toured the area both by air and on foot Sunday, said the buyout program won't stop just because homes were leveled. He went so far as to say he would "guarantee" that those awaiting buyouts who lost their homes would be treated fairly.
Henry said after meeting the immediate needs of residents, "we'll figure out what we do with the larger infrastructure. ... Picher has been through so much, and this is just another devastating blow. But we will be there to help them and do everything we can."
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., also said he would work to keep the buyout program on track.
Another question is how FEMA will approach the disaster. Oklahoma Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood said he doesn't know of another case in which a Superfund site in the midst of a buyout process for homeowners also was declared a federal disaster area after a storm, as Picher seems likely to be.
Because of Picher's Superfund status, it would be unlikely, he said, for FEMA to grant assistance to homeowners to rebuild in the town. But he echoed Henry's and Inhofe's assurances about the federal buyout program, which is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency.
"We will continue to assess the situation. ... We will make sure the people get the assistance that they need," Henry said. "If they need help to be moved to another location, we'll do everything we can to help them do that. I think it's kind of speculative for me to sit here and say exactly what's going to happen. I don't know at this point."
Jeff Reeves, who has followed his grandfather and father as Picher's fire chief, has lived in Picher all his 43 years and has watched it slowly decline, first from the closure of the mines, then from the mine waste.
Now there's another disaster town residents must deal with. How, Reeves was asked, could the community possibly bounce back from the latest blow?
"With everything else that's going on here, I'm not sure there is a recovery," he said.
His voice breaking, he said he and his fellow citizens are "doing OK. We're hanging in there. That's about all we can do. Everyone's helping."
Among the first things Sigle looked for when she arrived at her house Sunday afternoon was her late husband's prize collection of Mickey Mantle memorabilia.
Friends already had removed a safe containing the collection from what used to be her bedroom and she quickly checked inside.
"Oh, hallelujah!" Sigle said when she saw the carefully kept baseball cards from the career of Mantle — who grew up in nearby Commerce — and an undamaged ball signed by the former New York Yankees star.
Sigle, who has taught second- and third-graders in Picher for 37 years, also pulled out a slightly soiled T-shirt that read, in part, "Gorilla Spirit Lives On," a nod to the mascot of Picher High School, which will probably close in the next few years.
The storm only will speed up what was probably going to happen anyway, she said.
"I know I lost a lot of junk," she said. "I guess it's time to clean up and see what I need."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
