Below are some pictures of the Shredded Landscape. EVerything looks like this. This particular area of Pleasant Grove reminds me a lot of Homewood- beautiful old houses, albeit small and close together, with well-manicured lawns, very old (and beautiful) trees, etc. Nothing is left. The weird thing to me was that all of the landscape is gone- the gorgeous oaks, magnolias, poplars, crape myrtles, etc. are gone. Most of the trees look like toothpicks.
Used to be a house here.
More debris- most of what's left is unsalvageable. Folks have gotten everything that isn't destroyed.
All of the cars- ALL of them- looked something like this. Shari said these cars didn't belong to the houses where they were found in front of.
More pictures of the shredded debris and shredded landscape. It is hard to believe that anyone was able to survive among the debris/destruction.
This house had a crazy story. Looking at the front of the house from the street, it doesn't look like there's much damage. But when we pulled up in the driveway, you can see that this two-story house with a basement has been pushed back some 20 feet. The brick wall on the left of the picture is the wall of the basement. The basement is actually exposed. Shari was the first person to get to this house, and she found a man buried underneath the concrete slabs you see on the ground in the basement. Along with 4 men, she was able to free the man, stabilize him (his leg was shredded), and transport him 4 miles to the city hall area. City hall was the hub for ambulances. They had no way to navigate the roads otherwise.
Here is an interior room: the only thing left standing.
Below you see a driveway and nothing else. A house used to be there.
Look carefully and you can see a wheelbarrow smashed into the front of the SUV
Below is an example of the "symbols" they spray-painted on every house. The number at the bottom of the X (a zero here) indicates how many bodies were found. Also the date the house was examined is listed as well as the fire department that did the inspection.
The picture below is the top (roof) of a large two-story house. Shari said the house was all brick.
Try and find the small red piece of cloth in the photo below. The "Red Flags" were used to mark where all the bodies were. The woman who died here (literally smashed) was the former ED Director at Princeton.
