Oklahomans Still Recovering After Tornado Hits Haileyville

The recent rain is slowing down recovery efforts on hold in Pittsburg County. Nearly a week after an EF2 tornado destroyed businesses and homes in Haileyville, the town is still coming together to clean up the damage.

Resilience is what caused Mark McCullar to head back to his auto shop and work alongside his employees in the dark, without electricity, one day after his business was hit by an EF-2 tornado.

"I knew as long as we have the office, the body shop, the main part of the body shop, and the paint shop we can make it. We can make it," said McCullar.

The power is back up in the shop today, the building open to customers and Mark says watching the community come together to clean up the damage, not just in his shop, but in businesses and homes all over town... has been overwhelming.

“It's just nice being like this down here. Everybody helps everybody," said McCullar.

And everybody is helping everybody. Volunteers are making food and helping with donations. The Haileyville City Hall is packed full of food, water, supplies so that families who lost everything in the tornado can get what they need.

Groups of people from all over the state have come to help as well including rounds of volunteers from Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief Oklahoma.

"All of our crews have been here the last few days we cleared places out for people so they can get into their house right now they're needing people to help put tarps on top of houses," said Southern Baptist Convention Relief Oklahoma Joe Skinner.

There is still some damage and a week later the cleanup effort continues but for people living here in Haileyville it's not about the damage, it is about the comeback.