The community of Plantersville has started the cleanup and healing after a deadly storm ripped through on Saturday night, claiming two lives in the close-knit, rural patch of rural Dallas County.

On Sunday morning, snapped trees, tossed trailers and vehicles and scattered belongings and debris formed a scene of destruction on both sides of Dallas County Road 63 near Lovelady Drive.

John Green was there, standing by the remnants of the shop where he found the body of his friend, Dunk Pickering, who died after hosting a crawfish boil.

“He was the best person that anyone ever knew,” Green said. “He was a friend of everyone. He would give the shirt off his back to anyone who needed it, whether he knew them or not.”

Green said he had known Pickering for 20 years.

“He bought this shop five years ago for everyone around here to hang out at,” Green said. “He would have cookouts. Two or three nights a week, this is where we were at.

“He owns this and another property live five miles down the road. If everybody was not here, they were there. And it would always be anywhere from 30 to 50 people at every one of his get-togethers. He was the most loved person in this whole community.”

Dallas County Sheriff Mike Granthum was on the scene of the disaster Sunday morning. Granthum said there were two deaths Saturday night.

Granthum said one of the two victims was an 82-year-old woman who lived in a mobile home on the west side of Autauga County 63.

Granthum said her body was found on the east side, perhaps a quarter-mile from her home.

Granthum said two others people were treated and released at a hospital after non-life threatening injuries. The sheriff said everyone else was accounted for.

A third Alabama fatality was reported in Talladega County, where an 83-year-old died when his mobile home was destroyed.

Granthum said the county has still not recovered from a tornado two years ago that hit Selma and destroyed the county jail.

He said it helped to see the helping spirit of neighbors.

“To see people come out working hand-in-hand,” Granthum said. “Everybody has differences and stuff in the community. But when something happens, everybody comes together.”

Granthum’s voice faltered with emotion as he spoke.

“These people in this part of the county, they’re real resilient. It just hurts your heart.”

Angie Green, John Green’s wife, said most of the people left the crawfish boil at Pickering’s shop before the storm hit.

Green went to her daughter’s home nearby on the east side of County Road 63.

“We were sitting in the living room, and I could feel the pressure in my ears change,” Green said. “And I looked at my daughter, and I said, now that’s a tornado.”

Her husband had been sitting outside the house in his truck but made it into the house.

She said the family ran to a bathroom, including her granddaughter, who is about to turn 2.

“The glass on the windows in the house started popping,” Green said. “It fell like the whole house was about to come up. I could feel it. The whole house was moving. It stayed, but the roof is gone.”

Green said her granddaughter did not understand what was happening.

“She cried, because the whole house was shaking,” Green said. “All she kept saying was ‘My house, my house. I scared. I scared.’

“Even now, we can’t leave her, because she starts screaming. I told my daughter, surely it will go away. But I’ve never had to do this with my kids. So I don’t know.”

Green said the people in Plantersville stick together.

‘We all grew up with each other,“ Green said. ”We have known most everybody our whole lives. And we’re all like one big family.”