The Times from Shreveport, Louisiana • Page 6

6A TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 1994 THE TIMES msooys weather killer storms riATion STORM TOLL AT A GLANCE State-by-state glance of death tolls, injuries and early property damage estimates from storms Sunday that killed 44 people and injured hundreds: ALABAMA Deaths: 22 Twenty deaths occurred in or around the the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, which collapsed. At least 90 were injured in the collapse. Two were killed by twisters elsewhere in east Alabama. Twisters damaged two other churches within 30 miles of Piedmont. In Guntersville, the roof was blown off a nursing home, while injuries were reported in Shelby County.

SOUTH CAROLINA Power outages and structural damage was reported in South Carolina, where seven tornadoes touched down. No serious injuries were reported. TENNESSEE Deaths: 2 A hiker in the Great Smoky Mountains drowned in a rain-swollen creek during an afternoon deluge, and a woman drowned after she was swept away from her stalled car on a flooded country road in Blount County. NORTH CAROLINA Deaths: 2 In Charlotte, a man standing in front of his home was killed by a lightning bolt. A tornado touched down in the city, where heavy damage was reported at a housing complex and elsewhere.

A woman in Lincoln County was electrocuted by a downed power line. GEORGIA Deaths: 18 Nine deaths reported in Pickens County, four in Lumpkin County, at least three people in Bartow County and one in Habersham County and one in Floyd County. More than 150 people were injured, and hundreds of homes and barns were AP photo Jan Brown (left) and Tim Yongue carry Yongue's Methodist Church killing 20 people and injuring injured dog, Girl, from the wreckage of Yongue's at least 90 people on Sunday. The dog was in-Piedmont, home Monday as Eric McGee jured during the storm. Yongue had left the looks on.

The home was in the path of the same house to go to work 10 minutes before the fatal tornado that destroyed the Goshen United tornado struck. Portions of the Carolinas remain under tornado watch. By JANIS MAGIN The Associated Press 'SPRING GARDEN, Ala. To some, the heat and humidity were an ominous sign of what was ahead. 'But it wasn't enough of a warning to spare at least 43 people who were killed when dozens tornadoes roared east from Alabama through Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas on Sunday.

A 44th person, a Georgia corrections officer, also died Jjunday when he suffered a heart attack while supervising a crew of inmates helping clean up after the tornadoes. Hundreds of others were hurt. Twenty of the dead were at a cHurch in Goshen, 80 miles northeast of Birmingham. Families that arrived for Palm Sunday services left planning Holy Week funerals. Portions of the Carolinas remained under a tornado watch nMonday evening, and rain continued to fall across the region.

"The conditions were totally WPicy for any kind of a storm," forecaster tony Fulkerson of The Weather Channel said. "A wlbl of people got up in the morn-JJifg and said it felt so warm and Jrmuggy that something had to be brewing." a Late Sunday morning, warm -air from the Gulf of Mexico clashed with cold air from Tennessee, producing about 30 tornadoes, Fulkerson said. Palm Sunday services were un-Jder way at Union Grove -Methodist Church in northeast -Alabama when a tornado ripped iffilo it. But several dozen church ntembers scrambled to the and the 141-year-old build-ug held even as windows were 3Mbwn out. No lives were lost.

3-Rain continued to fall on north Georgia on Monday as repair "crews replaced torn roofs and "ifed chain saws to cut through Ufe-clogged roads. The region littered with cars, roofs, up-rsoted trees and about 1.5 million dead chickens. Fifly miles north of Atlanta, Jfif family members died when mobile home crumbled on 3op of them. 3n Charlotte, N.C., two people jwete killed, including a man Who was struck by lightning. The Tennessee Valley Authori-t-tx was spilling water from all of main river dams Monday to Reduce flooding blamed for at -least two deaths in Tennessee.

JLne of the Tennessee victims Jyas a woman who fell into a stream after she got out of her which had stalled on a country road. Grieving pastor and mother tries to rally church it "4 -isy I. i Holy Week Service Today "Paradise Ponderings" Reverend Brian Barron 12:05 Couch Chapel Lunch Follows for $2 FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH SHREVEPORT By DAN SEWELL The Associated Press PIEDMONT, Ala. After losing her 4-year-old daughter and much of her growing young congregation in the Palm Sunday tornado that devastated her church, the Rev. Kelly Clem isn't yet ready to answer the question: "Why?" "I was just walking around ministering and praying with people after it happened, and people were lying on the ground and asking: 'Why Kelly, tell me "We do not know why," she said she told them.

"I don't think 'why' is the question right now. We just have to help each other through it." On Monday, the 34-year-old pastor was struggling between her dual roles as grieving mother and the spiritual leader of a congregation shocked by death during the week that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. Her daughter Hannah was with other children waiting to sing in a musical drama telling the crucifixion story when the tornado struck, one of a series that pounded the Southeast on Sunday. One minute, the song Jehovah Jireh Hebrew for "the Lord will provide" filled the air of the church, a witness said. The next minute, debris was flying.

The tornado collapsed the Goshen United Methodist Church roof and the walls of the one-story red-brick church crumpled, burying dozens in the congregation of 140. At least 20 people died at the church, including six children, and some 90 worshipers were injured. The Clems' other child, 2-year-old Sarah, was in the church nursery that escaped the brunt of the tornado. She had minor injuries. Mrs.

Clem, who believes a flying brick was to blame for her badly swollen left eye and a big gash on her forehead, walked with her husband around the wrecked church and parsonage. She also suffered shoulder injuries. "I'm picking up on this pain and suffering and death," she said, gripping a pink stuffed cat Hannah got for Christmas. "But all I'm feeling right now is my baby." Mrs. Clem and her 34-year-old husband, the Rev.

Dale Clem, are well-known among Methodist clergy in Alabama, and ministers came from around the state to help them and the tornado victims. Members of her congregation mourned their losses and talked of keeping their faith. Mrs. Clem reflected on the brief time she had with Hannah and searched for some comfort "Some people told me that you must almost wish you never had a child," Mrs. Clem said.

"It hurts, but I'll never regret these four wonderful years with that child. We had some wonderful last days. I had her picture made and we made a video of her Easter parade. "She had talked about death. She said she thinks heaven is like Disney World and I told her that was right.

That child understood a lot. That gives me a lot of peace right now." Funeral services will be Wednesday at the First United Methodist Church of Anniston, where Mrs. Clem had been associate pastor until taking the Goshen ministry four years ago. x. AP photo The Rev.

Kelly Clem, pastor of the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, clutches a stuffed animal that belonged to her daughter Hannah Monday while touring the remains of the church. Hannah was among those killed when a tornado struck the church during Palm Sunday Services. Bishop Robert E. Fannin is to her right. Rockport lllgf mages of their boy sustain family HAMPERS KORNER In Uptown Center 5822 line Ave.

861-6996 Thirteen-year-old suspect to go trial in late April in 4-year-old's slaying. By BEN DOBBIN The Associated Press i 1SAVONA, N.Y. In the first chink of sunlight after a rainstorm, 4-year-old Derrick Robie would dig for worms. And once he got SmmWmfM ON EYEGLASSES ONLV SINGLE VISION BIFOCALS Frame Lens Frame Lens $0000 $AO00 1 CRIME them lined up on the back porch Mommy, Daddy, brother, baby he'd give each one a kiss. Everything he could dream up, he was into swatting tee balls, mixing meat loaf, helping unscrew lug nuts off the car wheel, hoard- wig hickory nuts in his coat pocket.

"As much of a boy he was," said his father, "he was very gentle with j- JU.M.MWII.UI.MU things. Eric Smith lived on the other side of town, a 13-year-old with glasses and a mask of freckles who played drums in the school band, rode his bike everywhere and had an infectious cackle of a laugh. Then, one overcast morning last August, in this pastoral village in western New York shad think if we didn't, we'd feel pretty negative." No one admired Derrick more than his little brother, Dalton. They played together a lot, and Derrick read him Green Eggs and Ham every bedtime. "My angel on Earth," said Mrs.

Robie, touching her 2-year-old's head of blond curls. "I've got one each place now." Over and over, she wonders how it could have happened. Three mornings a week, Derrick went to a summer recreation program run by the village in a field at the bottom of their dead-end street. It was threatening to rain on Aug. 2, Dalton was fussing and Derrick was stamping his foot, pleading for permission to go down by himself.

There was always a flow of neighborhood youngsters walking along the street, so his mother relented. She didn't follow him down the driveway as usual. Her strong-willed boy hopped down the back step and was gone. "We've had our share of people writing to us and calling us and telling me what a rotten mother I was," Mrs. Robie said.

"But people don't know the circumstances and they don't know the kind of parents we were." There were no eyewitnesses; police say Eric somehow persuaded Derrick to take a shortcut through an empty, overgrown lot. To Eric Smith's family, nothing had jumped out as a strong sign of mental illness though there were some disturbing tendencies. In 1989, he strangled a neighbor's cat with a garden hose. Two years later, when a schoolmate died in a car crash, he called the teen-ager's family on a few occasions, asking to speak with him. Dr.

Stephen Herman, a child psychiatrist hired by the defense, said in a preliminary report that the boy suffers from depression, nicotine addiction from smoking and a mental disorder that causes explosive outbursts. That will be sorted out at trial. In the meantime, the Robies replay the past, again and again. The body was recovered on Monday afternoon, the same day Derrick disappeared; the Robies didn't sleep until Tuesday night, aided by medication. In the middle of the night, Mrs.

Robie said, "Dale jumped out of bed and said Derrick had come to him in his sleep. He told him he was OK, that he never felt a thing." Dry Cleaning Special! $99 Smith GARMENT PIECES Silk, Rayon, Belts, Pleats, White Garments and Formals Extra. Laundry Special! AP photo Derrick Robie is shown in an undated family photograph. It begins, "Remember me in early spring, When tee-ball fields with laughter ring The village came together before winter set in and cleared the base of the hill, jagged with pines, where Derrick died. On a knoll overlooking two new baseball fields, a crab apple tree, a flagpole and a 42-inch statue of him swinging a bat will be erected this summer.

"As horrid and as negative as this has been, you just look for something to try to turn positive," said Mrs. Robie, 28. "I hope people can look at the statue and just remember what childhood was supposed to be about, because we've lost it somewhere with all these teen-agers that have gone totally haywire. I feel kind of naive because I thought I tried to keep him from everything." The couple are sustained by an endless flow of memories. "I think Dory and I talk about him like he was in the next room most of the time," said Dale Robie, 34, a printer.

"I $89 SHIRTS owed by steep-sided hills. Derrick was lured Jnto a stand of pine trees a short distance from home and battered to death. Eric Smith, authorities say, confessed to She killing; he is expected to go on trial in fate April on second-degree murder charges, the death of Derrick will be examined again, in excruciating detail. But the life of Derrick Robie ebullient, precocious, doted on by all who knew him, a ripper of a kid in short sleeves and suspenders with a mop of blond hair and a mischievous grin preoccupies those who loved him. 1 Dale and Doreen Robie moved nearly a mile out of town just before Christmas, to start afresh.

But the walls of their dining foom are filled with photographs of their ever-smiling son and mementoes a letter of condolence from the president, a poem written by neighbor Mary Davidson. Beautifully laundered expertly pressed with dry cleaning order. THRU THURSDAY i 1 i.