“My mobile home was gone but my family was okay and I was okay,” says Adriana Vella, a native of Mexico who now calls Missouri home.

Everything Vella and her family had acquired during the past eight years here was in this mobile home.
Everything except the one purchase that saved their lives.

"They say, the meteorologist, (the storm was coming) and we went to the storm shelter here,” Vella says.

So, Vella and 15 members of her family and friends piled into a storm shelter they built on their land after the 2003 tornados.

"We're going to start cleaning up (now),” Vella says after surveying the damage.

But cleanup could be challenging for Vella.
Coming from Mexico, she speaks the most English in the family.

"In the community we do have translators,” says Barry County Sheriff Mickey Epperly.

But, there are no translators currently working for the Barry County Sheriffs Department.

"We may encounter that in the future with them asking for help and we may have to get a translator to understand their language and everything to assist how we can,” Epperly says.

"We don't know if they have anyone who can speak Spanish,” Vella says.

They don't know because, no one has been around.

"Just the friends, we haven't heard from police or anyone,” says Vella.

To help fund cleanup efforts, Congressman Roy Blunt said Monday representatives from FEMA and the Small Business Administration will be in town by Tuesday.