Like being here. My photographer and i when we arrived in appomattox we were speeches, the for one hour and 20 minutes we were talking about fun things and then you get to evergreen and silent. Peer and utter silence because we are touched by the devastation among the folks impacted by the tornado that hit on wednesday, was Renessa Mccormick. Heres what she had to say. You dont see this or you dont think this will happen to you. Just praise god and think god we wasnt in the house and we made it through a life. Reporter just echoing what Renessa Mccormick said my family lived in kansas for many years in kansas you see devastation like this. You simply dont see this in virginia. We saw it in appomattox. Again, it is hard to put into words just what you are seeing here. Brick homes completely off their foundation youre seeing windows completely blown off of humongous trees that have to be three or 400 years old on their side. One of the things jeff and i noticed on our way in is the way the trees fell, not one of them fell in the same direction. Falling backwards forwards to the right and left an indicator of how strong the tornado was. Thank you jeff. Also indicates rotating motion. We will be hearing from jeff several times throughout our local news tonight. Learning more about the man who lost his life in the tornado that hit evergreen. 79yearold Edward Keith Harris lost his life when the ef3 tornado hit. Winds up to 165 miles per hour, his body was found tuesday night near twin tunnel lane. Rachel lucas spoke with his family today and they are telling us they lost more than just a loved one. Life from evergreen, rachel i guess the family grew up there in appomattox. Harris family is appomattox born and raised, everybody here in the Community Knows them and many of the siblings live here. I spoke with brother who lives a few hundred yards behind me. He also had damage from the storm today. They said that they were a farming family. 1 out of 18 children, a very big family and a farming family. Thats how they described their brother keith. He told me when the tornado hit his brother keith was sitting in his chair in his home in evergreen. The winds demolished his home and through him away where his body was found outside. His wife was injured during the storm but is expected to make a recovery. His daughters house was also damaged, extensive damage their. The family has lost a lot but after a long life they want their brother to be remembered passed. Keith was a good brother. He always tried to help provide for his family and our families also. Reporter funeral arrangements have not been set at this point but we know robinsons funeral home here in appomattox will be handling the arrangements. So rachel i would imagine with strong ties to the community that they are getting a lot of help from folks there on the ground. Reporter absolutely, his brother said today the community has been so wonderful, there has been an outpouring of support, they have received help and food. Donations and even the National Guard there was trying to help them. Help dominion get their power back on, that Community Support has really helped with the healing process. Live in evergreen, i am rachel lucas. Wsls 10 thank you rachel, to emerge and appomattox woman says her sons life is owed to a painter. The child had ran down the stairs and write told him to get inside a closet because the storm was picking up. Before we slammed the door, everything was black because the power was out. Everything got light again, thats when the house lifted up on that and and you could fill it. The man says he has never seen or felt anything like that before. According to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, they are telling us most people get hurt during the cleanup efforts. Virginia state police are setting up new precautions as a result in appomattox. Traffic has become a big issue blocking the narrow roadways needed for volunteer family members and volunteer organizations. Family members and first responders, checkpoints are leading into the hardest hit neighborhood. Starting tomorrow police will require placards on all vehicles to get to the site. Volunteers will have to properly be vetted through organizations to help. Our ultimate concern is safety and security of people here. We want to make sure they feel comfortable. And their property and belongings and the right people are coming to help them out. Anyone without placards trying to enter the roads will be turned away. If youre looking to help and a lot of folks are asking these questions, and Operation Center was set up for volunteers in appomattox. The city is asking those heading to the area to help to report to the old thomasville building at 310 founders lane. According to virginia Emergency Management one where you can help devastated areas is to donate money. The Department Says a surge of can make the Recovery Process more difficult. Instead, they ask you to look to donate money to agencies and nonprofits that are on the ground. They say that Financial Support is easier for the organizations to manage because it helps with a variety of needs and is easily distributed. And it allows agencies to buy what is needed. A list of organizations supporting go to our website. A couple lean on one another during the storm, they explain how holding onto each other helped them survive. My husband heard the noise, he said get in the closet. So we went in the closet and all of a sudden i said whats that . He said that is the roof coming off the top upstairs. A door came towards us. A total explosion of the whole house. We could feel ourselves dragging along. Next we started hearing bottom of the downstairs disappeared from underneath us. My husband jumped on top of me. As we were going along, i could feel a hand pressing down on me to hold us down on the ground and protect us the whole time that this was going on. We were shoved around and around and all through the yard and all over the place. I saw trees flying by me. If it wasnt for my husband i would be here. I am so blessed to be here. Saved my life. While. Can you imagine . Spoke through the storm we have witnessed all kinds of signs of strength and resilience. For complete coverage of the storm and its fallout and the people and organization making a difference for those in need this our website. Still ahead we check back in haniewich in the areas best weather cast associated press. Good evening a live look with our Virginia Tech sky cam. Sunshine today cant get rid of that wind. We are relaxing the winds from where we were the last couple days. If your walking outside you will get a good gust. Saw some clouds and if you like snow showers, mainly on the western slopes. Mostly clear skies, we have some clouds coming from the east back to the west. For the most part clear skies. A few clouds just spilling over the mountains again, things going to be relatively quiet but on the cool and blustery an hour by hour look shows a fair amount of sunshine to my. If you extra clouds early on tomorrow morning. Maybe some fog, clear skies overnight especially around the south side side. Mostly clear skies, something going to continue through the bulk of the weekend. Not a cloud to be found across much of the area heading into sunday. On sunday a bigtime warmup coming in our direction. The warmth down to lord new orleans around 60. Same for dallas and wichita, middle 60s. Awards comes in our directions. A nice big area of High Pressure off towards our east. These two systems are going together to pull winds out of the south and west and pump in much warmer air we are talking 60s come in our direction tomorrow on the cooler side. Upper 40s for highs on saturday, low to middle 60s on sunday. Hanging out in the lower 60s cross the second half of monday. Mild ahead of that and mild again on tuesday. Chilly tonight midto upper 20s partly cloudy skies heading into tomorrow. A cool day, wind in the afternoon not as strong over the past couple days, you will be able to feel it. Mid to upper 40s maybe 50 degrees on the south side. 7day forecast packet to 60 on sunday, 61 on monday. 60s on tuesday. That system will likely get going on tuesday in the midwest to pull in warmer air for us another round of thunderstorms on wednesday. Back in the middle 50s and lower 40s thursday and friday. Wild. We could have wintry mix on the back end. And then we could see that on the front side. Tracking the system closely. This is the time for crazy swings heading into march. A transition area. Storm team chief down on the ground in appomattox seeing the destruction firsthand. Back out to him, jeff, what can you tell us about the feeling in appomattox. Your own feelings thoughts and emotions. How are people handling this . They are devastated. There is just sheer and utter sadness around here. We are housed at the evergreen baptist church. Youve got people here from roanoke, salem, liberty university. Joining me now is roanoke battalion chief, teddy atkins. Ive got to question for you, one how long have you been you . And 2 have you seen anything like this in your career . We were activated by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. Our job was to do a chemical assessment of the community. This is a different type of devastation. It is one that you have to see here. Teddy, we were in the air for three Hours Wednesday i did not expect to see the devastation we are seeing here. When you first got into evergreen, obviously you had to have felt sadness, a complete total compassion for these folks. As soon as you come down for 60 for 60. You realize the database devastation that isnt this community. Our job is to help them as quickly as we can get back up and running and on their feet. Thank you for all you do. Battalion chief atkins. More coming up at 5 30 about the recovery effort going on in appomattox county. Reporting live in evergreen, jeff any which. More residential candidates stop in the valley. Political hotspot. Today the Community Page respects to a late senator who served his state and country for close to 50 years. State senator Madison Marie it happened in the Virginia Senate he served for 29 years, before that he spent 20 years in the army. He went from private to major and fought in europe korea and vietnam. As a senator, he was known for an advocate for Higher Education funding. s Funeral Service is tomorrow at 10 am. Experts expect a larger turnout at the polls next week. There has been more interest in the primary season this year, debate polls have consistently been higher than normal over the last few months. While general elections attract he says tuesday will be one of the biggest times to speak out. By november we will be down to two candidates. Most likely. Right now is when we get to hear our voices heard and decide who they will be. A lot of people will end up voting republican or democrat like they always do. Right now we did decide who represents the party. Virginia joins 11 other states as well as voters abroad for the primaries. Ahead you might want to gas when you hit tha you might know when you speak to that yellow light. Police are helping enforcement thanks to a new red light campaign. Running a red light comes with serious consequences. Safety sets from 24 to 2014 nearly 7800 people died in red light accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that. We are live in roanoke with more in this new campaign that was just kicked off today. Yes, it kicked out today. We took awry with city Police Officers. They have bumped up patrols along this road right here which is orange avenue. A lot of Police Officers out making sure people arent running red lights in this area. This trap he said Traffic Safety officers said that he and other officers are working with Roanoke County to get people aware of not running red lights. It is important people know that when they run red lights they are taking the risk of what people normally do when they try to beat the light is they speed up. Then you have all that exposed hazard. That is the first part that gets hit and thats why running red lights is so dangerous. Is usually not the person running the red light thats her, it is the individual who was the victim. A new aaa study says about 94 of people surveyed say it is unacceptable to run red lights. At the same time about one in three people at that same survey admitted they ran red lights within the last 30 days. Be careful, especially today. If you do run a red light, you will be stopped. Back to you. We dont want to get into a rack. Ever. Stay with on wsls. The satellite radar is showing we have mostly cloudy skies out there. Temperatures in the 30s across the area. We will see more sunshine and will have more on that. This is tran01 5 30. Now with 5 30 the store may be over, but the cleanup is only beginning. Every woodlot everyone gets along good in this community. After Tragedy Strikes resilient shines through in a community that has gone through so much. We have live thats like Team Coverage word devastation can be seen for miles. Good evening and thank you