VILONIA -- Alan Willard waited in the parking lot of the destroyed Dollar General store on Vilonia's Main Street early Wednesday with his legs dangling from the open door of his truck, hoping to catch a glimpse of history.
INTERACTIVE
Willard was one of the first spectators to stake out a spot to see Barack Obama on Obama's first visit to Arkansas as president of the United States.
Obama arrived to survey the damage and talk to survivors of the April 27 tornado that swept through three counties, killing 16 people and leaving a miles-long trail of wreckage. The president and his entourage toured the damage in all of central Arkansas by air, but the president's ground tour was centered in Vilonia, a city also hit by a deadly tornado three years earlier.
Willard's wife, who manages a store near Vilonia High School, told Willard on Tuesday about helicopters practicing landing on the school's fields. Willard, a retired military veteran, arrived before 9 a.m. waiting to see the motorcade drive along Main Street.
"A lot of people are claiming it's negative that he's coming here, but I think it's important. It's a good thing to restore people's faith in America's leaders," Willard said. "The volunteers who came to help are indispensable, but it's important that our leadership shows their support, shows that they care and that they are also going to help."
"I may not agree with him or have voted for him, but he is still the president, and he deserves that respect," he added. "I get a cringe in my neck when I hear people call him just Barack or just Obama. If you can't find anything else to say, it's Mr. President."
More than 100 people gathered near City Hall before the president's arrival, lining Main Street to take video with their cellphones, and wave homemade signs and posters. People came from all over the state, from places like Jonesboro, Pine Bluff and Conway.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Jeri Fowler of Little Rock carried a star-studded sign saying, "Welcome to Arkansas President Obama!!"
Fowler said she hopes the president's visit during adversity will help unite Arkansans. "It's just about helping people right now," no matter their party or their race, she said.
Treasie Heard of Maumelle stood nearby, waving small U.S. flags. "We're just here to support the president," she said.
Vilonia residents had mixed feelings about the president's visit. An online petition urged Obama to stay away while another supported his visit. Many residents continued working during Obama's tour or took only a short break from their cleanup efforts to watch the motorcade drive by.
Before Obama arrived, a man who wouldn't give his name but said he grew up in Vilonia was buying gasoline at the Valero service station on Main Street. He wavered on whether he was in favor of the visit.
"I guess it's a good thing," he said, adding quickly, "People want action instead of just coming in here and making a show."
Still, the man said, "He's trying to do the right thing."
Across the street in the old Vilonia High School gymnasium, Conner Yerton, the chairman of the Spirit of Vilonia Ministries, said the group and its volunteers were more concerned with continuing to gather aid for the storm victims.
The group began running a food bank after the 2011 tornado, but its building was destroyed by last week's tornado, Yerton said. Since then, the group has temporarily set up shop in the old gym, offering clothes, food, Bibles, toiletries, tools and other supplies.
"His visit is happening in the background. We've seen over 500 people asking for help in the last week, and that's where our focus is today," he said.
Yerton said the group made two runs early Wednesday to a makeshift tent city that holds about 15 families and was preparing to make a third trip in the afternoon.
"They lost everything. Not only are their houses gone, but a lot of them lost their green cards, and they're scared that people won't believe they're here legally, or they don't have the money to replace it right now," Yerton said. "They lost their tools, their trucks. We're trying to help them as much as we can."
Ricky Thomas, who supervises the Valero station, sat at the McDonald's restaurant that shares a building with his business. The station suffered minor damage compared with other nearby businesses that were demolished. Thomas, who lives in Benton, said he has been giving away free coffee and water, and lowering fuel prices to help local residents.
"We're trying to help out just anyway we can," he said.
Thomas later walked a few yards closer to City Hall to join scores of other people trying to get a glimpse of the president. He said the president's visit was a good thing because it might help the area get more federal aid.
Seeing the devastation in person rather than just by television "makes your stomach turn," he said.
Several residents met privately with the president, including those who lost loved ones in the disaster.
Tim Hunter and his wife, Vicki Champagne, sat side by side in wheelchairs outside City Hall after they visited with Obama. Both were still bandaged and bruised.
Their son, Jeffrey Hunter, 22, died when the tornado demolished their home.
Champagne had left the hospital less than a day earlier, but she said the couple wanted to be there for Obama's visit to honor their son's memory.
"He cared enough to come," she said of Obama, her voice soft and trembling. "He didn't have to come."
"I think his position as our country's leader helps to give moral strength during times of tragedy," she said. "It doesn't fix anything, but it helps us realize we are connected."
When someone asked the couple where they live, Tim Hunter replied softly, "We used to live in Vilonia."
When he lost his son, he lost his house, too, he said.
After talking privately with the families, the president briefly toured one of the most damaged areas of the city.
About 20 people tried to follow the president's caravan on foot from City Hall to the Parkwood Meadows subdivision. State police officers ushered the small crowd out of the street and onto a grassy area along Williams Street about 100 yards from where a podium had been set up in the subdivision for the president to give a short statement.
The crowd strained to see Obama amid the piles of debris remaining from the storm that tore through the neighborhood.
After a reporter from Channel 5 in Fayetteville used his phone to live-stream the president's remarks, children and adults huddled around the journalist, hushing others so they could hear Obama's words of encouragement.
Kanisher Caldwell had arrived from Pine Bluff early Wednesday morning, stopping near the news vans parked on Main Street near Cemetery Road. With her were her 9-year-old daughter, Madison Caldwell, and her daughter's friend 9-year-old Emarie Mahogany.
"We thought it was important that they see what a disaster like this can do to a community and that they be here when our president came," Caldwell said as she made signs early Wednesday on neon poster boards asking God to bless and restore Vilonia.
Later, Caldwell was one of the people who tried to follow the motorcade and were ushered to the grassy area. She and the two girls huddled silently, holding hands as they listened to the president's speech broadcast over the phone.
Afterward, the crowd shifted to the roadside to wave at the president's motorcade as it sped along Naylor Road on its way out of town.
"That's awesome," said Little Rock resident Cathy Nevels. "Even if we didn't meet him, he was here, and that's important. You see the damage on TV, but in person it's nothing like that. It's so much. Houses that are just slabs now. It was important for him to see that."
A section on 05/08/2014