The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 8

A8 LOSANGELESTIMES THE NATION houston teamslooked desperately for survivors Sunday after the latest barrage of tornadoes barreled through several states, killing at least 22 people. The outbreak of devastating twisters Saturday evening least the fourth major tornado disaster this year in the U.S. took its heaviest toll in Missouri, where 13 were killed in rural NewtonCounty and two elsewhere in the state. The tornado touched down in southwestcorner around 6 p.m. Saturday and cut a path of destruction nearly amile wide at some points, according to National Weather Service officials.

It left dozens injured and thousands without power. State officials said the death tollmightrise. got some critically injured people in hospitals, and hoping they said Susie spokeswoman for emergency management agency. is a pretty rural area and still trying to get a handle on how many were hurt, because a lot of buildings are just The National Guard is helping out, she said. Just across the state line in northeastOklahoma, six were reported dead in was rippedapart earlier by what may have been the same tornado.

It was a final indignity for the pollution-scarred for- mer zinc and leadmining town, which was about to be abandoned under a government buyout program because it is literally sinking. town was in the process of closing up, but there were still several hundred people here in town and their houses are just said John of housing authority, whose own home was damaged. know some of the people dead.Some of my friends lost everything. just unbelievable Houses, cars and businesses in a 20-square-block area on south end were devastated, according to the Okla- homaDepartment of Emergency Management.In many cases, only slabs remained. Witnesses describedseeing shocked people, some of them stained with blood, wandering the streets.

One woman was rescued after a manspotted her fingers sticking out of the rubble. More than 150 were injured. By Sunday Brad Henryand other state officials had declared that all of roughly 800 residents were accounted for. People, debris clog roads In Missouri, most of the casualties were in town of the foothills of the OzarkMountains. Entire neighborhoods were leveled, with wood-framehomes lifted off their foundationsand smashed across roads and fields, said Jason Schaumann, aNational Weather Service meteorologist in Springfield, Mo.

The storm system generated at least eight tornadoes, some as powerful as a 3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, which estimates strength from 0 to 5 based on damage. A 3meanswinds were136 to 165 mph. In the hours after the tornado, rescue crews were blocked by downed trees and power lines in rural roads. In some cases, pieces of homes and cars had been hurled half a mile. By Sunday morning, groups of families and friends looking for loved ones in Neosho who be reached by phone joined crowds of curious spectators, clogging roads further.

just so thankful that my parents are healthy and said Will mother and father had closed their bridal shop outside just before the storm hit. The shop was destroyed, and on Sunday, muddytux- edos littered the roadway and clung to broken branches. In Georgia, aset of tornadoes killed at least one person in the town of more than 80,000 people lost power, mainly in the Atlanta and Macon metropolitan areas. More than 70,000 were still without power as of Sunday afternoon, according to Georgia Power spokeswoman Carol Boatright. President Bush, who was at his ranch nearCrawford, Texas, for the wedding Saturday of his daughter Jenna, offered his condolences and promised federal aid.

Day is a sad day for those who lost their lives in Oklahoma and Missouri and the president said in astatement, adding, federal government will be moving hard to A bad year Numerous twisters have already dealt heavy damage across the Midwest and South this year. They include a Febru- arycluster that killed more than 50people in Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, and a Marchtornado that roared through the heart of Atlanta, damaging the Georgia Domeand injuring dozens. Some survivors of this storms, including one California transplant, said they soon forget them. Ladonna Peeples and her husbandwere relaxing Saturday in their log cabin in Neosho when their phone rang. It was their son and daughter-in-law, calling from a nearby said that they were hiding in the shelter, that a tornado was coming and we needed to said Peeples, 47, a real estate agent who moved to Missouri from Merced County four years ago.

By the time Peeples rounded everyone her mother was visiting from California was hail the size of grapefruit coming down and the sky was she said. When the storm had passed, the was one of two still standing in her neighborhood. Her trailer was splintered rubble. So were two of the houses that she had just listed for sale. son ran over here last night afterward, climbing over trees and racing to make sure we were Peeples said.

morning, he showed up with achain saw and carrying a Day It was acookbook, filled with recipes of Southern comfort food. soon as the power comes back, going to start Peeples said. a stress cooker, and right now, about as stressed out as ever miguel.bustillo@latimes.com p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com Tornado toll at 22 and could go higher Rural Newton County in Missouri and a near-abandoned Oklahoma town called Picher are hit hardest. By Miguel Bustillo and P.J. Huffstutter Times Staff Writers NOT MUCH LEFT: Pollution-scarred Picher was sinking literally before the storm, but the tornado virtually razed it.

Six people died; officials said all 800 or so residents were accounted for. Men help salvage what they can from a family home. Larry W. Smith European Pressphoto Agency just OHN PARKMAN of Picher, Okla. ashland, ore.

as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigned in Eugene, her onetime friend and mentor Jean Houston was at home in her double geodesic dome, a style that is not out of place here in this town of theater lovers and spiritual seekers. could have probably gone down to see her, and she would have hugged me and it would have been said Houston, as she sat on a sofa surrounded by art from Bali and Greece in her circular living room. could have been very useful to her. But there would have been cameras, and they would have now, so desperate, gone to the Houston was not spiritualist, but when Clinton was at her lowest after the 1994 defeat of her healthcare initiative, the Republican takeover of Congress, seeminglyin- terminable investigations and intense vilification Houston, apioneer of the human potential movement, wassomething of a secret emotional life raft for the first lady.

The friendship ended after Bob Woodward revealed in a 1996book that Houston had helped guide a devastated Hillary Clinton in imaginary conversations with her hero Eleanor Roosevelt. Houston rarely speaks about her relationship with Clinton. As nomination seemed on the verge of hitting the skids, Houstonre- flected on style of politics and where the first viable female presidential candidate may have gone wrong. Houston is a scholar and philosopher who travels the world giving seminars on human potential and what she calls applying myth, history and spirituality to help effect social, political or personal change. During President Bill first term, Houston and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson, a friend of Houston, helped Hillary Clin- ton arrive at a new understanding of the symbolic power of her officeand tutored her in what would become her most successful ventures as first lady atrip to South Asia, her first a speech in Beijing about human rights that many would consider her finest moment.

Houston is a prolific author whose associates have included Margaret Mead mother)and mythology professor Joseph Campbell. Shegot to know Eleanor Roosevelt as a high school student in New York. Houston sees the presidential race through a mythic lens. current election is a look at archetypal said Houston, a handsome 71- year-old with a broad smile. Sen.

Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has shamanic personality, of she said. Clintonis classical wise woman or priestess, if you The presumptive Republican nominee, Arizona Sen.John McCain, she added, is The Houston believes Obama is on the verge of winning the nomination partly because he has promoted himself as the embodiment of a new kind of politics, and partly because Clinton has had trouble portraying her authentic self. is funny, hilarious, generous, warm, given to acts of kindness that are Houston said. is a deep woman, not just a very bright woman. But she is part of a dying breed, an archaic The biggest change in human history over the last 5,000 years, Houston said, the rise of the feminine slowly, but surely, to full partnership with men over the whole domain of human affairs.

This is shifting This was what Houston and Bateson tried to convey to Clinton in 1995 when they helped her understand why, quite apart from political strife, she was the object of so much loathing. the fear of the Houston said. Ironically, problem today, Houston said, may be that Obama has given better voice to that new pattern of that he embodies amore female, inclusive approach to problem-solving, while Clinton has become mired in proving herself capable of emulating the male model, which requires combat and the demonization of enemies. Houston got to know the Clintons at the end of 1994, when they invited a small group of bestselling self-help authors Marianne Williamson, Anthony Robbinsand Stephen R. to Camp David over New Eve.

Both Bill and Hillary Clinton were reeling from their defeats and searching for a way to get back on track. It was a time, as Woodward noted in Hillary Clinton seemed around by the muddled role of first lady, as she swung between New Age feminist and national In her 2003memoir, seemed to agree: much as I loved my husband and my country, adjusting to being a full-time surrogate was difficult for me. Mary Catherine and Jean helped me better understand that the role of first lady is deeply symbolic and that I had better figure out how to make the best of Woodward wrote that Houston tried to steer Clinton away from her and need to have enemies who could symbolically be singled out to embody the a shame the warfare model is still Houston said. she could have moved to the next level, she would be the next Houston and Bateson also helped Clinton prepare for her first solo trip as first lady, a visit to Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh in March 1995that helped soften image, particularly when she was photographed riding an elephant with daughterChelsea. Clinton laterenlisted Hous- ton and Bateson to help craft her first book, Takes a which became a bestseller.

Clinton has invoked her trips to South Asia and Beijing she stood up for the rights of women and children examples of foreign policy experience. (As for her misrepresentation of landing under sniper fire in Bosnia, Houston said, The been under sniper fire for 20 years, so I can see how that would Stung by Clinton herself had often remarked in speeches that she had imaginary conversations with Roosevelt, but detailed account of the hourlong session with Houston and Bateson, which had been taped, insinuated something stranger at play. Clinton handled the affair with humor, but her critics pounced, dubbing the episode Houston was besieged by reporters. She gave a few interviews, including one to Larry King in which she humorously guided him in a conversation with his hero, Arthur Godfrey. The White House, she said, asked her to stop talking.

Houston found herself tarred as a Age who had conducted with the first lady. She felt she suffered a tremendous blow to her professional reputation. Co-founder with her husband, Robert Masters, of the Foundation for Mind Research, which studied human development and states of consciousness (she was among the few sanctioned LSD researchers in she said she lost income, grants and an opportunity to serve on the board of a Laurance Rockefeller foundation. The Clintons did not exactly abandon her, Houston said, but there was not much support. were living in a kind of war zone all the time, so Icould not feel badly for myself under the she said.

whole episode was the single biggest trauma of my Houston said. people know my work has affected agreat many lives around the world, but I stay quiet about it and I stay out of the On Thursday, Clinton attended a fundraiser in Ashland. Houston could have gone but opted to stay home. robin.abcarian@latimes.com CAMPAIGN An archetypal analysis of Clinton Her former mentor reflects on where the first viable female presidential candidate may have gone wrong. By Robin Abcarian Times Staff Writer JEAN HOUSTON The scholar and philosopher helped guide Clinton, then saw her own reputation suffer.

Ed Bailey Associated Press LITTLE Shealah Craighead White House private wedding was all we could have hoped President Bush said. little girl Jenna married a really good guy, Henry More of the 11 photos that the White House released are at latimes.com..