RAYNE, La. (AP) - As the storm roared toward Pauline Patton's apartment, she peered out the window and saw something she wasn't ready for: A funnel cloud. Suddenly, the power went out. Rainwater poured through the ceiling. And as everything went black, she heard what sounded like a bomb exploding overhead.
Still, residents said the tornado that killed a woman the day before and displaced hundreds could have been much worse. Many have turned their attention to taking care of pets and retrieving essentials left behind while evacuating.
Patton, 64, and her husband, Howard, were having lunch Sunday at a fire station-turned-shelter, courtesy of the Red Cross. They weren't sure when - or if - they'd be able to return to their apartment. About two dozen people were also at the shelter, with nowhere else to go.
"It just happened so fast," she said. "You couldn't hardly see nothing. Everything was dark."
Many of the 1,500 residents were being allowed to return to their homes in this community about 70 miles west of Baton Rouge, said Rayne Police Chief Carroll Stelly.
"If they have power and they have no barricade tape, they can sleep the night away," Stelly said.
However, about 100 damaged homes were still barricaded off. Forty were uninhabitable and 60 hadn't been inspected yet, Stelly said.
Some 150 homes had been damaged or destroyed as winds topped out at 135 mph, leaving at least 12 with injuries that were not life-threatening.
On Sunday, a cat curled in the sun on top of the demolished home where 21-year-old Jalisa Granger was killed. Granger had been protecting her 15-month-old son, Tyrek, when part of an oak tree crashed onto the home. Her mother and brother were also inside, her cousin said. An uncle had to cut a hole in the wreckage to pull out the three survivors, said Granger's cousin, 35-year-old Donita Wilridge.
"My aunt said that within 30 seconds it was over," Wilridge said.
Granger's son is too young to understand what happened, but is missing his mother, who was studying nursing at LSU at Eunice.
"He just keeps hollering for her," Wilridge said.
Elsewhere, mud-soaked belongings were strewn about the yards. Emergency workers spray-painted symbols on homes that they had checked. Splintered wood, glass shards and metal littered yards, while aluminum siding was wrapped around trees. Chainsaws hummed in the distance as crews cut downed tree limbs from power lines.
In the evening, residents allowed back into their neighborhood used flashlights to look at the damage.
Harold Mouton, 67, was stunned to find yellow tape cordoning off his house, meaning he couldn't stay there. The twister ripped through the front of the house and it had shifted off its foundation.
"I feel like crying, man," the shaken Mouton said. "That was my daddy's house, my grandmother's house."
Gov. Bobby Jindal was meeting with officials and survey the damage. He said more would be known about federal assistance when teams from the state and federal government assess the damage.
"These are a strong people. We are going to rebuild back better and stronger than we were before," Jindal said.
Marla Andrew, 50, was waiting at the police department hoping someone could get her back to her home so she could check on her terrier Keosha, who had gone a full day without food and water. Andrew had been giving her elderly mother a bath when the storm hit.
"I was so worried about getting my mom out of there I completely forgot about the dog," said Andrew, whose home was not significantly damaged but was located in the evacuation area.
In that same waiting room, 50-year-old Reginald Mouton was hoping he could at least retrieve an essential piece of medical equipment and avoid a second sleepless night. Mouton uses a machine to help control his sleep apnea, a disorder that causes pauses in breathing while people sleep.
Police had given him about 15 to 20 minutes to pack a bag when his neighborhood was evacuated, and he forgot the device. Nonetheless, he was grateful his home did not have serious damage.
"I'm very fortunate. We as a community are very fortunate," he said. "It could have been a lot worse."
The hardest hit-area in Rayne - which bills itself as the Frog Capital of the World because of its annual frog festival - is composed mostly of low- to moderate-income homes.
"My heart goes out to the residents because a lot of them don't have any insurance," said Maxine Trahan, a spokeswoman for the Acadia Parish Sheriff's Office. "So where do they begin?"
Among those without insurance were Diane Wheeler, 45, and her husband, Anthony Rochony. They were staying at the Red Cross shelter, and they didn't know where they would be able to live now. Wheeler said they'll either have to stay at the shelter or with out-of-town relatives.
"It hurts my feelings, but there's nothing I can do about it," Wheeler said.
The couple didn't hear the tornado before it slammed into their home, ripping off the roof and tossing their belongings all over the house.
Wheeler said she flipped over a couch and tried to hide beneath it while her husband lay nearby on the floor. His arm was cut by a shard of flying glass, though she emerged unscathed after they endured what she said seemed like about an hour of high winds and rain.
"I was scared, very scared," she said.