Guard works on devastated town before Iraq tour

National Guardsmen bound for Iraq returned instead to their tornado-flattened hometown of Pierce City, Mo., to help clean up splintered homes and businesses and check on their loved ones Tuesday after twisters killed at least 40 people in three states.

One person was still listed as missing Tuesday in this southwest Missouri town.

The death toll reached 18 in Missouri with the discovery of a child's body outside Pierce City, and rose to 15 in Tennessee after a man was found dead in a field near Jackson. The storms Sunday night also were blamed for at least seven deaths in Kansas.

Severe weather returned to Kansas and Missouri Tuesday, as the National Weather Service issued tornado warnings for 14 counties.

In Pierce City, wind whipped dust from the rubble as big raindrops splashed on Bill Shepherd and his relatives, who were lashing blue plastic over furniture they were moving on a flatbed trailer.

"Oh man. Oh man. Not this again," Shepherd shouted. "I swear, this weather has put the coffin nail in this little town, and nature just won't let us go in peace."

Members of the Missouri National Guard's 203rd Engineering Battalion had been at the Army's Fort Leonard Wood, about 75 miles from Pierce City, working on paperwork for their deployment to Iraq, when their cell phones started ringing with calls about the tornado.

One of the Pierce City buildings destroyed Sunday night was the National Guard Armory, where many of the soldiers had trained and where some residents sought shelter during the storm. A large part of the building collapsed, killing one person.

On Tuesday, many of the unit's soldiers were taking personal leave to help in their hometown, said Capt. Gerald Green, a company commander. They are still expected to leave for Iraq in a few weeks to help repair war damage.

"To be honest, Baghdad looks better than Pierce City," Green said.

National Guard Sgt. Ray Wormington said his mother's house was destroyed.

"We're the land of the plenty. We take it for granted," Wormington said. "At the same time, our town is becoming a ghost town, but we're fighting for a good cause."

Mayor Mark Peters said the property and sales tax base in the town of 1,400 people "is just gone, a major hit."

The town was awaiting an expert analysis on which of its 130-year-old downtown buildings can be saved. "There is so much that is special about this town and we want to save as much from the bulldozer as we can," Peters said.

President Bush on Tuesday issued federal disaster declarations for seven counties in Kansas and 39 in Missouri, an action that allows federal emergency assistance to flow to the affected areas.

In the Ozarks of southwest Missouri, crews cleared away most of the toppled trees that had blocked roads in Stockton, where Sunday's storm killed three people and wrecked the business district.

"It's been a wonderful response from the area at large to get this cleaned up -- to try to get us back to whatever normal used to be," said Ian Hafer, emergency management director in Stockton, a town of about 2,000.

Power was still out Tuesday in Stockton, but a generator had one of the city's two wells working, and another had the sewer system functioning again.

One of the hardest hit areas was Madison County, Tenn., where 11 people were killed.

In Jackson, the Madison County seat, dozens of brick buildings had been smashed.