KENLY Lillian Jernigan fought off tears Sunday every time she glanced at the pile of rubble where her next-door neighbor and friend, Maryland Gomez, used to live.

Friends and family plucked keepsakes from the debris of the Gomez home on a day that saw this small Johnston County town and others along the Wilson County line mourning their losses and reaching out to help victims after a series of deadly tornadoes ripped through a swath of Eastern North Carolina early Saturday. The twisters struck along the Interstate 95 corridor between Dunn and Elm City, leaving two dead and more than 50 homes destroyed or damaged in Johnston and Wilson counties.

Gomez, 61, was found dead under a mattress after a tornado pulverized the double-wide mobile home that neighbors said was once surrounded by a cozy porch, planted shrubs and seven Yorkshire terriers. Her husband, Argiro Gomez, survived, though he suffered a punctured lung and several broken ribs.

Jernigan's own home had been condemned -- shifted from its foundation by the same twister that killed her friend -- even though it appeared whole from the outside.

"I just don't know if I would want to live here anyway," Jernigan said. "I don't know if I could stand being reminded of this every day."

Like other tornado victims, Jernigan found solace for her grief and hands-on help clearing out her home from an army of friends and volunteers who descended upon the storm zone.

More than 100 volunteers fanned out from a command center at the Kenly Original Free Will Baptist Church to ravaged neighborhoods Sunday morning, and vans with more helpers continued to pull up in the afternoon.

Envelopes full of donated cash went to the Red Cross and directly to the victims themselves. Jernigan said she was offered three places for her family to stay indefinitely.

"Kenly pulls together when there's a tragedy," said Hope Moore, a friend of Jernigan's who recalled similar support after a fire damaged her family's restaurant this summer.

Teresa Batten was still shaken Sunday as volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others separated pieces of metal from piles of wood slated for burning. They cut damaged trees into logs, occasionally bringing Batten pieces of mail found in the nearby woods.

More than 50 people pitched in a day after one of the early-morning tornadoes blew two porches away from Batten's home and took much of her roof, causing massive water damage.

"They just all showed up this morning and started going," she said. "Just to see these people out here today is amazing."

The occupants of some heavily damaged homes weren't quite ready for the assistance, turning away help as they tried to come to terms with their losses.

"They're in shock," said Steve Stancil, volunteer disaster relief coordinator for the N.C. Baptist Men, one of the largest groups to respond Sunday. "It takes a day or two to process it."

As he spoke, Bill Archer of Clayton showed up unbidden with a truck full of tools and asked Stancil what he could do. Archer said he imagined someone would help him should disaster strike. Recently unemployed, he said the tragedy also gave him perspective.

"My problems are minor when you look at the scale of this," Archer said.

On Saturday, Alan Hooks was trying to cover the hole where his roof used to be with black plastic. A group of men brought a blue tarp and covered it for him.

On Sunday, Hooks' three girls ran through the yard picking up stray objects, trying to figure out where they came from. Aluminum pieces from a drainage gutter. A length of carved wood, perhaps a leg of someone's chair or table. A deep red cover to a porch swing that Hooks said flew from the Gomez's home a few hundred yards away and landed among the soybean fields that surround his home.

Maryland and Argiro Gomez moved to the area from New York about a decade ago, said longtime friend Frankie Walker. Walker, a jewelry dealer, said Argiro Gomez would repair jewelry when he passed through New York, and Walker talked him into moving to North Carolina.

Maryland Gomez joined him and made herself at home in the rural setting: raising Yorkies, puttering in the house and yard, cooking meals for neighbors and her three children when they came to visit.

"She said they were as happy here as they had ever been," said Anita Walker, Frankie's wife.

Maryland Gomez had recently recovered from a stroke, Jernigan said, and was pleased to be able to work around the house again. Five of her seven beloved dogs survived the storm that took her life.

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