LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — As we near the anniversary of the March 31 tornado, many places that were hit have already bounced back, but for hard-hit areas like the Roller Funeral Homes, the only way to rebuild was to start from scratch.
"We have always been pillars of the community," said Renata Jenkins Byler, owner of Roller Funeral Homes in Little Rock. "The community is still here, helping us build this back and bring us back to them."
Byler said it's hard to imagine they're in the rebuilding stage after suffering significant tornado damage.
"We had 41 trees that came down," Byler said. "You couldn't even see our office building for all the trees between the funeral home... We had two holes on this side of the office building. The slight tower from the top of their funeral home ended up on our office building."
A business owner's worst dream is to be woken up to the reality of their business being destroyed by a natural disaster.
"There's no way that we could have served our families in a building that was not safe," Byler said. "We had to take it down to the ground, and now we're building it stronger and better than ever."
Now, nearly a year removed, Roller Funeral Homes is reclaiming their business again on Chenal.
"You'll see the vertical walls going up [and] the steel is being brought in next week," Byler said. "We're putting the trusses up, so people are getting excited, and they can see that we are coming up."
Byler said Roller Funeral Homes still serves the community with the same mission, just with an updated look.
"When you come into our funeral home, you're coming into our home," Byler said. "We open the door, and we want you to feel comfortable. We were almost 30 years old, and we wanted to bring back to the community updates at 30 years old, so when the architects had done it before, it was hand drawn, and now everything is done by the cad system."
Byler said Roller Funeral Homes plans to have an open house when construction is completed. They hope that can happen in the next 18 months.