Twisted Together

Stephanie McCrummen (thanks, Mark): RAINSVILLE, Ala. — On the first day, just moments after the tornado roared through here, Corey Plunkett and his wife looked out across the green field where their trailer had been, now an alien wasteland of twisted, shredded debris under the blackened sky.

On the second day, they sorted through the fragments in the bright sun: ripped photos of strangers, a piece of someone else's mattress, someone else's medicine. When the wind blew, shards of fiberglass from someone else's house stung their faces. Everything was someone else's; their stuff was mostly gone.

On the third day, near midnight, exhausted, Corey Plunkett sat at his parents' trailer and checked his e-mail. There was a new message.

"My name is charlie thompson," it read. "My wife and I live in Hixson, TN. We found a pay stub in our front yard that the tornado carried in. . . . Is this you? Await response."