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Sue Odom's Neighborhood Map

I asked my grandmother to draw a map of their neighborhood, thinking that some sort of paper record could help preserve their decimated community. Because I wanted to see how she remembered the neighborhood, I was careful not to tell her what she should include in the drawing.

VIEW ONE

Judging by the title at the top of the page, this is the primary way my grandmother wanted this picture to be read. From this perspective we can see three rows of houses. These are the houses on either side of the street my grandparents lived on, as well as the houses on the street behind them. 

Every home is labeled with the name of the person or family who lived there. Some homes are labeled with first names and others with last names.

Below the lowest row of houses there are two streets' worth of trees, densely packed. Below them...well, we'll get into that in the next image.

VIEW TWO

Looming tall over the trees and the houses are three mounds. These are labeled "Coal Washing Plant." My grandmother's drawing doesn't do justice to the enormity of these coal piles. If I had to guess, I'd say they're anywhere from 70 to 100 feet tall.

The coal washing plant is an interesting landmark relative to my grandparents' neighborhood. When I was in elementary school, many of the families in that neighborhood were involved in a class action lawsuit against the mining company that owned this coal washing facility. The reason? When the company trucks went back and forth down the main road, little gusts of soot blew into the neighborhood, where they settled on cars and on porches.

There's a photograph from this time period in which I sit on the edge of my grandparents' porch, blackened soles turned to the camera. Do we have this picture still? Was it blown away with the house? I'm not sure.

In any case, this lawsuit forced the coal company to plant plenty of trees around my grandparents' neighborhood. The idea was that they'd act as a buffer, keeping some of the coal dust from getting onto porches and whatnot.

I knew that this coal washing plant existed in theory, but I'd never actually seen them. For me, the most haunting thing about the tornado's aftermath was looking out onto the horizon and only seeing these massive piles of coal.

The feeling was similar to when you're watching a home invasion movie for the second time around, and you realize that the intruder has been in the periphery the entire time. You've just been too distracted to notice.

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