Military planes fly food into snowbound towns

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) – Military planes flew in tons of emergency food Monday to towns and villages in eastern Romania where thousands have been stranded by blizzards. Some people had to cut tunnels through 15 feet of snow to get out of their homes.

By Daniel Mihailescu, AFP/Getty Images

A man rides an ATV vehicle to clean up the snow in a park in Bucharest on February 13. 74 people were reported to have died in Romania as new snowfall has caused disruption in the south.

By Daniel Mihailescu, AFP/Getty Images

A man rides an ATV vehicle to clean up the snow in a park in Bucharest on February 13. 74 people were reported to have died in Romania as new snowfall has caused disruption in the south.

Since the end of January, Eastern Europe has been pummeled by a record-breaking cold snap and the heaviest snowfall in recent memory. Hundreds of people, many of them homeless, have died and tens of thousands of others have been trapped by blocked roads inside homes with little heat.

Authorities declared an alert Monday in eastern Romania, where 6,000 people have been cut off for days. About a dozen major roads were closed, 300 trains canceled and more than 1,000 schools shut down.

In addition to the food flights, the defense ministry said 8,000 soldiers were clearing roads across Romania and helping people trapped by the snow.

The airport in the southern city of Craiova was closed after a plane with 48 people on board skidded during takeoff Monday into a pile of snow, breaking its propellers. A female passenger broke her leg after she jumped from the plane.

A tugboat on the Danube river, one of Europe's key waterways, was breaking up ice between the Romanian ports of Sulina and Tulcea in eastern Romania. The boat was also bringing food to remote communities in the Danube Delta, where supplies have been affected after 440 miles of the river froze over last week in Romania alone. The Danube winds 1,785 miles through nine European countries to the Black Sea.

In Serbia, tens of thousands are still stranded by the snow, while schools and most businesses remained idle for the second week due to emergency measures to save energy.

An avalanche hit western Serbia late Sunday near the artificial lake of Perucac, sweeping away a man as his wife and child waited in the car nearby. Rescuers say divers will look for the man in the lake.

Emergency officials also plan to use helicopters to pull out sailors stuck on stranded boats on the Danube near the Serbian town of Smederevo, as well as to deliver food to a Danube island near Pancevo, north of the capital of Belgrade.

In Montenegro, helicopters helped evacuate some 50 passengers stranded for three days on a train that was blocked by an avalanche.

Rescuers in southern Kosovo over the weekend pulled a 5-year-old girl alive from the rubble of a house flattened by a massive avalanche that killed both her parents and at least seven of her relatives. Her home in the remote mountain village of Restelica was buried under 33 feet of snow.

In the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, the roof of the Grbavica stadium partially collapsed Monday under the weight of heavy snow but no one was injured. It was the second stadium roof collapse in Sarajevo in as many days, following one at the nearby Skenderija sports stadium that hosted ice skating at the 1984 Winter Olympics.

Bosnia has been paralyzed with record snowfall for over a week. Temperatures as low as minus 22 Celsius have made it difficult to clear the snow.

North of Paris, icebreakers made their way through the frozen Canal St. Denis.

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Louisiana coastal towns struggle with storm flooding (Reuters)

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Louisiana Gulf Coast towns and inland waterways struggled with flooding on Monday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee continued to test flood barriers but the city of New Orleans remained in fairly good shape.

Jerry Sneed, deputy mayor of public safety for New Orleans, reported no significant problems on Monday morning, with standing water remaining in only a few areas outside the levee protection system. No deaths were reported from the storm.

"Overall, things worked well, I think we did OK," he said.

As of 5:30 a.m., utility company Entergy reported no remaining power outages in New Orleans. At one point, some 38,000 homes in the area had lost power.

New Orleans was devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, which flooded 80 percent of the city, killed 1,500 people and caused more than $80 billion in damage. Half of the city is below sea level, protected by levees and flood gates.

This time, the city fared better than its neighbors and out-lying areas.

The continuing tidal surge brought by strong southerly winds flooded about 20 homes in Slidell's Palm Lake subdivision, east of New Orleans, overnight as drainage arteries into Lake Pontchartrain backed up, leaving up to four feet of standing water.

The nearby Oak Harbor subdivision stayed on flood watch on Monday morning as Lake Pontchartrain's waters remained about three feet above normal.

By morning, as the tropical depression moved to the east, winds in the local area shifted to the north, beginning to help move the water back out of some flooded areas. But the shift didn't come soon enough for some areas.

Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser complained bitterly of delays in improving levee protection as he joined crews continuing a losing battle against the water.

"Look at the people who suffered through four hurricanes and the oil spill," Nungesser said. "How much more can they take?"

Surging water overtopped an old levee on Sunday night, making the main highway through the parish impassable. Water flowed freely across Highway 23, flooding nearby pastureland.

HERDING CATTLE IN BOATS

Men used boats to herd about 30 head of struggling cattle to higher ground, forcing the animals to swim to the safety of a Mississippi River levee.

After Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flood devastated the New Orleans region in 2005, money was allocated to boost levee protection in the parish, Nungesser said. But the Army Corps of Engineers has not yet begun the construction work.

"It's frustrating to know the money is in the bank to rebuild this levee and we're out here fighting this," he said.

Grand Isle Mayor David Carmadelle said crews were working to reopen Louisiana Highway 1 south of Golden Meadow as the water recedes on Monday. He said serious erosion has occurred on the beach of Grand Isle, a barrier island, and he also complained that the Corps of Engineers has delayed construction of levees the agency has promised.

In coastal Terrebonne Parish, parish President Michel Claudet said the shifting wind was a relief. He said just three houses had been reported flooded. Some roads remain closed in low-lying areas of the parish, but "the rain's stopping and we're looking forward to the north winds," he said.

Claudet said an "aggressive elevation program" that helped finance the raising of about a thousand homes in the lower part of the parish in recent years helped prevent the widespread home flooding that could have occurred.

Meanwhile, a marsh fire that has burned some 1,500 acres in eastern New Orleans over the past week continued to smolder on Monday morning. Local officials had hoped rainfall that totaled up to 15 inches in recent days would extinguish the persistent fire, which they believe started with a lightning strike on combustible peat moss and other marsh brush.

Across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, water overtopped a levee outside a floodwall on the Harvey Canal, But officials said the wall, built after Hurricane Katrina, remains solid and should protect nearby homes.

To the north, across Lake Pontchartrain, some communities waited anxiously for shifting winds to carry floodwaters back into the lake. The Mandeville lakefront, where most homes and businesses are raised, remained closed Monday, with water still splashing over barriers.

Some areas of nearby Madisonville remained flooded from the water pushed over the banks of the Tchefuncte River.

(Writing and reporting by Kathy Finn; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Peter Bohan)

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Coastal towns rethink tsunami evacs from ground up (AP)

LONG BEACH, Wash. – When the next devastating earthquake strikes off the Northwest coast, it is expected to send a tsunami so fast that it could leave coastal communities with perhaps 20 minutes to escape the surge of water.

For small towns like Long Beach, which sits on a long spit just above sea level, the wave's speed will leave minimal options for getting away: People can literally run for the hills, but the first elevated areas are more than a mile to the east, difficult to reach and likely unknown to tourists. Or people can try to drive, cramming roads that could be ravaged by the quake and follow the ubiquitous blue evacuation signs — assuming they still exist.

"If you have a major earthquake, God only knows which way those signs are going to point," said Long Beach city administrator Gene Miles.

Recognizing the ominous options they currently face and the Japan tsunami that displayed the potential destruction, some areas along the Northwest coast are working on plans to build massive hills or structures that could be used to escape the tsunami's reach. The so-called vertical evacuation sites have been adopted in parts of Japan but have never been pursued in the United States.

Communities in Washington, working with state officials and university researchers, have identified a series of about 40 potential evacuation sites and are now working on more for areas on the Olympic Peninsula. Officials in Bay City, Ore., have discussed the possibility of a site in a low-lying area. Crescent City, Calif., plans to use an existing assisted living facility — the tallest building in town — to shelter people who can't get to higher ground in the event of a sudden tsunami.

For those looking at building new sites, here's one glaring problem: The ideas are expensive. Miles estimates that his plan to build a 40-foot berm — about as high as the tallest buildings in town — would cost $250,000. The reinforced earthen mound would sit near a school and close to the city center, allowing people to scale the hill and wait out the destruction on top.

Only 1,392 people live in the town, although it fills with vacationers during the summer.

Costs were a factor in the decision by Cannon Beach, Ore., officials to back away from a proposal to rebuild its city hall to withstand a tsunami and refuge people in upper levels. Now officials there are in early discussions about the possibility of creating some sort of evacuation platform, said Mayor Mike Morgan.

Scientists believe it is only a matter of time before the next mega-quake strikes at the Cascadia Subduction Zone just off the Northwest coast. Those quakes, which can send tsunamis straight onto shore, strike every 400 to 500 years — with the last one happening about 300 years ago.

The earthquake would likely last about five minutes and trigger perhaps six feet of land subsidence along the coast. Rushing in from just 50 miles offshore, the tsunami could arrive within 20 minutes.

Oregon's Department of Geology is in the process of reassessing the potential devastation that a tsunami could inflict on the coast. New maps recently produced for the small city of Bandon illustrate potential damage from the surge.

Some people who would be on the waterfront in Bandon would have nearly a mile to travel to reach high enough terrain. And, since the tsunami's inundation would grow deeper as it crashes into higher ground, scientists project that evacuees in certain locations may need to get to an area 100 feet above sea level to be safe.

Officials in Bandon still believe the hillsides are the greatest refuge and are not looking at building any vertical structures. That's the case in many communities along the Oregon coast that have hilly, amphitheater-style backdrop that can be used for escape.

Ian Madin, the chief scientist at the Oregon Department of Geology, said the vertical evacuation sites could be useful in some communities but that steep terrain makes them unnecessary in many areas. He cautioned that the Japan earthquake and tsunami should not trigger a panic that leads to pointless spending on costly projects.

"You're not going to solve the problem in six months, and the odds are that you will have decades to prepare," Madin said. "I hate to see people stampeded into rash decisions."

Washington state also has a rugged coastline, but it includes more lowlands that are vulnerable. That's part of the reason behind Project Safe Haven, a coordinated analysis of evacuations between federal, state, local and tribal officials.

Leaders behind the effort believe several population areas along the Washington coast — including parts of South Beach, Westport and the Tokeland peninsula — are not close enough to natural evacuation spots.

John Schelling, who leads the earthquake program at the Washington Emergency Management Division, said the towers, berms and buildings under consideration each have pros and cons — from costs to accessibility to usability during regular living. But he said the plans that communities are adopting will help set the stage for making a funding pitch in the future.

Some of the early stages of the planning came after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Schelling said this year's disaster brought a renewed focus and helped to engage citizens.

"The Japan event really reinvigorated tsunami planning and preparedness efforts," Schelling said.

___

Associated Press Writer Mike Baker can be reached at -http://twitter.com/MikeBakerAP

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Mass. towns look to rebuild after deadly tornadoes (AP)

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS, DAVID COLLINS and STEPHEN SINGER, Associated Press Russell Contreras, David Collins And Stephen Singer, Associated Press – Fri Jun 3, 3:31 am ET

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – A number of Massachusetts communities are confronting the long and painful task of rebuilding shattered lives and livelihoods Friday, just days after three deadly tornadoes flattened more than 200 homes, killed at least three people and scattered debris across the state.

Gov. Deval Patrick said at least 19 communities reported damage from the violent storms, which came with fair warning, in an area of the country that rarely sees such severe twisters that destroyed homes, peeled-off roofs and the toppled steeple of a 140-year-old church.

"Some of the damage was particularly profound," Patrick said Thursday.

"In West Springfield, for example, they are reporting 88 that are total losses; in Springfield itself, about 35; in Monson 77 total losses and counting," Patrick said. "Monson was one of the communities most significantly hit."

If the National Weather Service agrees Wednesday's three deaths are tornado-related, it would bring the year's U.S. toll to 522 and make this year the deadliest for tornadoes since 1950. The highest recorded toll was 519 in 1953; four deaths from Joplin, Mo., that were added Thursday tied the record. There were deadlier years before 1950, but those counts were based on estimates.

Tornadoes are not unheard of in New England — the downtown of Connecticut's largest city was devastated by one last June — so many people heeded warnings. That didn't guarantee their survival; among the dead was a mother who shielded her teenage daughter as they huddled in a bathtub.

But in many cases, doing the right thing — quickly — helped save lives.

Karen Irla, 50, was leaving Adams Hometown Market in the picturesque village of Monson when she heard children on their bicycles yelling, "Look at that tornado!"

"I screamed and I screamed and I screamed, and that's why I have no voice today," said Irla, who drove to a nearby senior center and waited until the storm passed.

Inside the market, produce manager Frank Calabrese made a quick decision that helped keep customers and employees from coming to harm.

In a move recalling a famous video from the recent deadly tornado in Missouri that documented shoppers' terrifying moments inside a convenience store cooler, Calabrese herded them into a walk-in freezer, where six to eight endless minutes passed while the building shook and windows shattered.

"What else are we going to do?" he said. "We sat inside and waited it out."

No one in the store suffered a scratch.

The storms hit as many people headed home from work Wednesday, paralyzing motorists who could see the twister coming at them.

A fixed television camera caught dramatic images of a debris-filled tunnel cloud crossing the Connecticut River and slamming into Springfield, a working-class city of about 140,000 residents, where it cut a swath of destruction 10 blocks wide in some spots. The city is home to the Basketball Hall of Fame, which was spared damage.

Michael Valentin, 29, said he was eating at a soup kitchen near downtown when he started hearing thunder and went outside.

"All this was chaos," he said. "It was like a mad wind twisting. It was destroying everything. Cars were being smashed against walls. Pieces of wood and trees were flying in the air."

Debbie Perkins, 30, was filling up a small backyard swimming pool for some children when they spotted the funnel. They ran into the home and huddled in the basement.

"The kids, they were all screaming and crying," Perkins said. Unlike many of her neighbors, she escaped without damage to her home.

Among the injured in Springfield was a prosecutor struck in the head by debris while walking to her car; she is expected to survive, but her name was not released.

The Hampden County district attorney, Mark Mastroianni, said he barely escaped injury himself when plate glass windows shattered and blew into his office and a conference room.

"People started to scream, `Get away from the windows,' and as I was just turning to run, the glass window just came flying in," he said.

Fabiola Guerrero wept Thursday as she returned to the wreckage of her family's home, which collapsed and crushed to death her 39-year-old mother, Angelica, as she sheltered a younger daughter in a bathtub. Guerrero said her sister was trapped for two hours before being rescued.

Guerrero said her mother always said she would die for her daughter.

"She was an amazing woman," she said.

The devastation was repeated in town after town around Springfield. Some of the most severe damage was in Monson, about 15 miles away, where homes were leveled and a historic church was badly damaged.

"This isn't supposed to happen here," Sen. John Kerry said after touring the damage in Monson, usually a quiet mountain hamlet about 90 miles west of Boston.

The toppled steeple of the First Church of Monson — founded in 1762 and rebuilt in 1873 — was a symbol of the heartbreak many residents were feeling. But townspeople were relieved that no one in the town of fewer than 10,000 was killed — and were determined to rebuild.

Gov. Patrick said he was moved by gestures of goodwill.

A woman in Monson received a phone call from someone in the Boston suburb of Milton — the governor's hometown — who had recovered her checkbook register after the ferocious winds apparently carried it 90 miles.

He also addressed the death of the West Springfield woman who died while saving her daughter's life by covering her in the bathtub.

"I'm a dad, and I understand a mom or dad would do anything to save their child," Patrick said.

Authorities initially believed at least four people died but later determined that a heart attack death in Springfield was likely unrelated to the storms. A man died when a tree struck a van in West Springfield, and another person died in Brimfield, though authorities have not released details.

The governor, who declared a state of emergency allowing officials to sidestep usual regulations to provide quick relief, pledged that the state would throw all its resources behind recovery and that federal disaster assistance would be sought.

"For those who are feeling, quite understandably, that they can't imagine what a better tomorrow would look like, I want to assure that we are working to get to that better tomorrow," he said.

Massachusetts public health officials said about 200 people sought treatment for storm related-injuries.

Dr. Reginald Alouidor, a surgeon heading the trauma teams at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, said the injured at his hospital ranged in age from 2 to their mid-60s, with many suffering broken bones or other injuries from wind-driven debris.

Seven remained at the hospital Thursday, including a woman whose liver was lacerated when a building collapsed on her.

Police and National Guard troops went door to door in Springfield to check for any residents who were injured or otherwise needed help. The police chief confirmed reports of looting and other crimes, but no arrests were made.

Tens of thousands remained without power in the region.

Given the extent of damage, Patrick, who joined Kerry and Sen. Scott Brown for an aerial tour of the devastation, said it was remarkable there weren't more deaths.

While two or three tornadoes hit Massachusetts on average every year, they're usually weak and rarely strike heavily populated areas.

That may explain why the twisters caught people by surprise, said Stephen Frasier, a University of Massachusetts professor who has chased tornadoes across the Great Plains.

"Two things happened: This was bigger than the average tornado that hits Massachusetts that usually just knocks over a tree or something, and of course, it hit a populated area," Frasier said.

Tornado watches and warnings had been posted Wednesday by the National Weather Service and were broadcast by radio and TV stations, "but people just don't react to it here the way they do in other regions of the country," he said.

Most Massachusetts communities also don't have warning sirens like in the South and Plains, where people know exactly what they mean and are trained in grade school on how to react. Where sirens do exist, he said, New Englanders often treat them with curiosity rather than as a nudge to seek shelter.

In 1995, three people were killed by a tornado in the small town of Great Barrington, Mass., along the New York border. Last year's tornado in Bridgeport, Conn., heavily damaged buildings but killed no one.

On June 9, 1953, a monster tornado sliced through Worcester and other central Massachusetts communities, killing 94 people and making it one of the deadliest single tornadoes in U.S. history.

___

Collins reported from West Springfield and Singer from Brimfield. Contributing were Associated Press writers Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn.; and Denise Lavoie, Mark Pratt, Bob Salsberg, Sylvia Wingfield and Rodrique Ngowi in Boston.

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Towns in Pa., Ohio reflect on tornado anniversary (AP)

By MICHAEL RUBINKAM and JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press Michael Rubinkam And John Seewer, Associated Press – 1 hr 46 mins ago

WHEATLAND, Pa. – As they dig out, tornado victims in the South and Midwest might find it hard to see past the wreckage of their communities to a future in which homes and businesses are rebuilt, trees are once again standing tall and proud, and life is back to normal.

Maxine "Sis" Cluse knows how they feel. She lost everything she owned exactly 26 years ago, when the deadliest U.S. tornado outbreak between 1974 and this catastrophic season nearly flattened her hometown of Wheatland.

Her simple advice to tornado victims: "You can't give up."

Today, a visitor would be hard-pressed to detect any physical sign of the twister that wrecked Wheatland on May 31, 1985. The same goes for Niles, a town just over the border in Ohio that was changed forever by the same tornado.

If there's a lesson to be learned in Niles, Wheatland and other towns devastated by long-ago disaster, it's that communities are resilient. And that rebuilding, however slow, fitful, frustrating and expensive, will probably take place, though what emerges will not necessarily be a carbon copy of what was there before.

The calamity that devastated Niles and Wheatland and has become an important part of both cities' lore. More than a generation removed from a tornado outbreak in three states and Canada that killed about 90 people, storm survivors still talk about what it was like — and some still get nervous when the forecast calls for severe weather.

The monster funnel, classified as an F5 on the Fujita tornado intensity scale, wrecked three miles of Niles before slamming into Wheatland as the strongest twister in Pennsylvania's recorded history.

Though they fell victim to the same tornado, the towns took different paths to recovery.

In Wheatland, the super-storm killed eight residents, leveled most of the town's industrial base and left 400 people homeless in the rough-and-tumble Flats section near the Shenango River.

Wheatland rebuilt, but it wasn't the same. Modern zoning precluded the kind of industrial-residential mix that had emerged gradually over many decades in the Flats, and the town council voted to turn the entire neighborhood into a 60-acre industrial park. A promotional brochure from the era boasted: "Wheatland: The Town a Tornado Couldn't Beat!"

The new industrial park welcomed several specialty steel companies, a trucking firm, a storage business, a machine shop and a manufacturer of cylinder caps.

Yet most of the displaced residents never came back to Wheatland, and couldn't even if they wanted to because of a lack of housing and room to build. By 1990, the town's population had plummeted by hundreds of residents to 760.

"Wheatland has changed a lot. We lost half of our residents. But we're still a close-knit community," said Sharon Stinedurf, the town's secretary.

A small memorial in the industrial park marks the devastating path of the tornado. Flowers are laid there each anniversary.

About 15 miles to the west in Niles, the tornado killed nine people, destroyed 100 homes and businesses, and damaged 250 more. The economic loss totaled more than $60 million.

Tom Telego, the city's business manager and director of emergency management, said it took the city five years to fully recover. Population loss, now at 19,000, was minimal. Most businesses rebuilt; the ones that didn't were replaced by other businesses.

He said the rebuilding effort was helped by a sense of shared purpose.

"It gives you a commonality that allows you to bond together and overcome it," said Telego, who was a Red Cross volunteer in 1985.

Overcoming is not the same as forgetting. Though Niles' tornado sirens are tested at the same time every Saturday, residents still tend to look skyward — just to be sure.

Delena Bowman remembers making dinner for her husband when the winds arrived that dark day, "like four trains coming through." The family took refuge in the basement while the storm ripped away part of their home.

Afterward, the Bowmans and their two children stayed in the wreckage for three weeks until they found a temporary place to live.

Six months after that, on Thanksgiving weekend, they moved into their brand-new split-level — built on the site of their old home.

It was a lot of hard work. At times Bowman felt aggravated and depressed. But she got through it.

"We just took it day by day," she said. "That's about all you can do when something like that happens."

In Tuscaloosa, Ala., a much larger city where 41 people died and more than 5,000 homes were damaged or destroyed on April 27 this year, a 50-member task force is already putting together a long-term recovery plan. Everything's on the table — stricter building standards, improved infrastructure, even aesthetics. A report to the mayor is due July 1.

"We are in the juxtaposition of having to move swiftly but deliberatively," Mayor Walt Maddox said. "We have managed the crisis very well. Now we have an opportunity to manage the recovery in a way that honors all who have lost so much."

He said the task force and members of his own staff are reaching out to other cities and towns that have rebuilt from disaster.

"How did they move forward? What did they do right, and what are some lessons learned?"

For answers, Tuscaloosa might look to Xenia, Ohio, where a monster tornado from the fierce outbreak of April 1974 killed 33 residents and leveled more than 1,000 homes and businesses.

The southwestern Ohio city looks a lot different today than it did then.

Business leaders and politicians argued over how to rebuild the heavily damaged downtown, and five years passed before developers broke ground on a strip shopping center that replaced quaint brick storefronts dating to the late 1800s.

"At the time it seemed like a great concept because they were trying to re-energize the downtown," said Tim Sontag, owner of a shoe store. "But it lost some of the qualities of a good downtown."

Alan King, who owns a child care center, wishes city leaders would have created a destination shopping area, not a strip mall with acres of parking and fast food restaurants.

His advice to those just starting to rebuild: "Don't rush just to fill space. ... Do something that will give you a vibrant community down the line."

Economist Daniel Sutter said the pace and strength of disaster recovery can turn on a number of factors, including the extent of the destruction, the wealth or poverty of the community, and the strength of its social and civic institutions.

"Part of it becomes, what do you mean by recovery? Is a full recovery, the same population and employment levels you had prior to the disaster? Do you get back in the same growth path you had prior to the disaster?" said Sutter, a professor at the University of Texas-Pan American.

"Everything is going to get picked up, the damaged buildings torn down, and the streets cleared," he said. "But if a community is much smaller, you might question whether there has been a recovery."

As Cluse found out, recovery isn't easy.

For six weeks after the tornado roared through her life, she and her three young kids — all of whom had suffered injuries — slept on the carpet of a rented house devoid of furniture.

Gradually, she replaced belongings and rebuilt her life. In 2000, she moved into one of five new houses offered to Wheatland's tornado victims, funded by grants and built by a charitable organization.

"It's been a struggle after a struggle," said Cluse, now 53. "I've come a long way."

___

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.

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Towns hit by twisters offer rebuilding road map (AP)

By JIM SUHR and JIM SALTER, Associated Press Jim Suhr And Jim Salter, Associated Press – Thu May 26, 10:45 pm ET

JOPLIN, Mo. – Less than a week after one of the nation's deadliest tornadoes wiped a big chunk of Joplin off the map, the city is beginning to shift its focus toward the next challenge: rising from the ruins. And the town that gained fame as a stop along Route 66 can use the road maps drawn by other storm-savaged communities that have endured the same long journey.

Not far from Joplin, tiny Pierce City and Stockton rebuilt piece by piece after tornadoes reduced much of their prized downtowns to rubble, killing four. Greensburg, Kan., did the same, starting over after a 2007 twister leveled the town and killed 11.

The rebirths took years of hard work, partnerships and plain old stubborn faith. Some of the projects are still unfolding. Yet they offer a hopeful testament about beginning anew after a disaster, even if the other towns didn't face the scale of death and decimation rendered by Sunday's tornado that killed at least 126 people and by some estimates injured more than 900.

Joplin's half-mile-wide twister took out the city's main hospital, the high school and possibly thousands of homes. The Walmart was flattened, along with the Home Depot. Hundreds of businesses and industrial buildings were lost. And an untold number of vehicles — from cars to tractor-trailers, even the hospital helicopter — were mangled.

City Manager Mark Rohr said planners are already plotting a comeback, vowing Joplin "will recover stronger than when we began."

Federal aid will help.

President Barack Obama has declared disasters in Jasper and Newton counties, and a key House panel has approved a $1 billion aid package to make sure federal disaster-relief accounts don't run out before the end of the budget year in September.

Rep. Robert Aderholt, an Alabama Republican, said the move would ensure there's enough money for victims of the Joplin tornado, as well as those suffering from flooding along the Mississippi River and last month's twisters that swept across Alabama.

A day after Joplin was crippled, Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told reporters any federal aid to disaster areas may need to be offset by spending cuts. But Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, vowed to make sure Joplin gets all it needs.

Funding questions aside, former Joplin Mayor Ron Richard, now a state senator, was a bit more cautious than Rohr in his vision for the immediate future.

"I wouldn't consider this an economic-development opportunity. This is just survival," Richard said. "We're just going to have to get back to where we were — as close as we can would be the goal. I'm not sure how much time it's going to take."

Julie Johnson felt that way about Pierce City on May 4, 2003, when tornadoes marched into Jasper County on the Missouri-Kansas line and cut a swath east across the state. When the fury had passed, 18 people were dead and some 70,000 structures were damaged or destroyed over 76 counties.

The twister killed a man when the National Guard Armory where many were seeking shelter partly collapsed.

Pierce City, a town of 1,260 people some 35 miles southeast of Joplin, lost more than 80 homes and all but three of its businesses. A nine-block area of its historic downtown was wiped out. The district was once replete with antique shops and eateries housed in buildings that dated to the 1800s.

The city hall, fire station, library and senior center? Gone, along with the grocery store, two convenience shops, the pharmacy and the hardware store.

"We had a lot of historic stuff, two full blocks of historic, beautiful buildings. Only three managed to make it through," said Johnson, the city clerk.

But Pierce City pressed on. A new $4.7 million armory opened on the city's south side, replacing the old building, which now houses a mental-health center. The city got a new firehouse, a City Hall that's a $450,000 replica of an old train depot, and things local leaders never dreamed of having — a Dollar General store, two strip malls and storm shelters at the fire station and at the schools.

"Some things came back bigger and better," said Johnson, who has spent all but four of her 48 years in Pierce City, where the population is down just 128 from a decade ago. "It's never going to be the way it was as far as physical attributes, and we lost the historical charm as far as downtown. But we're back."

So is Stockton, eight years after the lakeside town was brought to its knees by the tornado that killed three people, nearly destroyed the town square and knocked out one-third of its 120 businesses. Hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed, and the park was obliterated.

Residents wanted to start rebuilding immediately, Mayor Patty Thompson recalls. But the city council barred new construction for a few months, allowing for cool reflection about how the resurrected town should look.

Now, Thompson said, Stockton has a "whole new downtown," its buildings fashioned of dark brick. The community center, about the only thing salvaged from the tornado, has been rehabbed. Trees have been replanted. Residents appear to like it. The population of 1,819 is down just 141 from 2000.

"I'm really proud of how this community pulled together and went forward," said Thompson, 65, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant. "A lot of people could have just moved away and said forget it. But we've just got a beautiful little city."

Scars remain: Some sidewalks buckled by the tornado still need replacing. Replanted trees in the park can only grow so fast, and saplings are being planted in the once-devastated cemetery.

Still, she said, "In eight years, you can say, `Look at how far we've come. We can overcome.'"

Both cities had big-time help. The federal government extended a rare offer to assist with long-term recovery, offering a package that included developing a plan for rebuilding, as well as appointing a project manager to seek out private and government assistance. The Federal Emergency Management Agency eventually doled out millions of dollars in grants to both communities.

In southern Kansas, Greensburg was a town of about 1,500 with a declining population before a tornado roared through in May 2007, destroying 90 percent of the town in winds topping 200 mph.

At the time, Steve Hewitt was a 33-year-old, first-time city manager on the job for only a year. He said the town approached rebuilding as an opportunity and, like Stockton, took some time to think about it.

Greensburg brought in planning consultants from a big city, held community meetings, reworked some zoning ordinances and literally shuffled the town. The school was rebuilt at a different site. City Hall was rebuilt on land that once was a car dealership, which relocated to a higher-traffic spot. And Greensburg rose up as a model green community — more environmentally friendly than it ever had been, including a $50 million school with geothermal systems that rely on the Earth's heat for warmth in the winter and cooling in the summer.

Even so, the recovery is far from total. According to the 2010 census, Greenburg's population of nearly 800 is barely half of what it was a decade ago, as is the number of businesses. Yet to be rebuilt are the town's pharmacy, variety store and movie theater.

"We're seeing a gradual growth, but it comes down to jobs and employment. Economic development is highly important and critical to our situation," said Mayor Bob Dixson, a 57-year-old retired postal worker. "The tax base was gone. The businesses were gone. Schools were gone."

Hewitt, who left Greensburg a few months ago to become the city manager of Clinton, Okla., knows Joplin can follow a similar path to get back on its feet.

"The next weeks and months (in Joplin) will be very dark and grim," Hewitt said. "But in that tragedy, there will be some unique bright spots, because you start to see the future develop. You'll see a sense of community unlike they've probably ever witnessed."

Stockton's Thompson agrees.

"It'd be easy to just give up," she said. "But a lot of people who have lost loved ones still have a lot of loved ones left. The community can pull together and rise from the rubble. They can do it. We did."

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Suhr reported from St. Louis. Associated Press Writer David Lieb in Jefferson City contributed to this report.

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