ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

ST. LOUIS — The belt buckle Jake Wheeler wears gives away his adventurous spirit.

“Wall of Death,� it says, a tribute to a former life.

Wheeler, who grew up in north ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ and lives on the city’s south side now, used to be a carnival daredevil. He rode a motorcycle at dangerous speeds in a never-ending circle, and he was so close to spectators that he could take off a man’s hat and put it back on him in the blink or two of an eye.

These days, he’s balancing on broken rafters in tornado-ravaged homes in the city he loves.

Wheeler grew up in the West End. Like many children of his generation, he attended suburban public schools — in his case, Ladue — through the city’s voluntary inter-district transfer program. Wheeler’s great aunt is Dr. Julia Davis, a famed African American educator whose name adorns at the intersection of Natural Bridge and Newstead avenues.

The library, like so many places in the path of the May 16 tornado, is closed for repairs.

When the tornado hit, Wheeler and his wife, Sara Isbell, did what many people have done in the past two weeks: They rushed to see what they could do to help. Wheeler is an HVAC contractor and has plenty of tools, but he stopped to pick up a chainsaw on the way. After checking on his dad, who was in a third-floor office in his house when the tornado put a hole in the roof, Wheeler started finding places where he could help.

“The tornado took a path through a sentimental part of the city for me,� Wheeler said.

Among his first stops was a home he owns on Bayard Avenue south of Fountain Park.

Then, Wheeler started putting tarps on neighborhood roofs with gaping holes. He soon met Chad Jackson, who was doing the same thing. Jackson lives in Florissant but grew up in north ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, on Garfield Avenue in the Ville neighborhood.

When the tornado hit, Jackson called his friends with Action ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½, the nonprofit activist group that started after the Ferguson uprising. The group was mobilizing tornado support out of O’Fallon Park.

Jackson owns his own remodeling company and decided his skills were best put to work on a roof. There, he met Wheeler. They became fast friends and started looking for other roofs they could protect — and to protect homeowners who didn’t want to leave.

Wheeler and Jackson had a shared philosophy: The repairs needed to last not just a week or two but for months, or up to a year if possible. They know north city is in for a long recovery.

That’s not necessarily the case in Clayton, where Johnny Lee lives.

“Our neighborhood got hit pretty hard, but by Monday, you could hardly even tell,� he says.

Lee also headed to the city to volunteer, and he ran into Wheeler and Jackson. He lacks their skills in the construction trade, but they invited him to join their ad hoc crew.

For more than two weeks now, the three men have traversed the hardest-hit parts of town — on Leduc Street in Kingsway East; Labadie Avenue in the Ville; and Clarance Avenue in the O’Fallon neighborhood. With plywood and tarps and hard work, they salvage whatever wood they can and then stabilize roofs, keeping out water that can possibly doom a home to collapse.

“You get up on one roof and you see that every one of them in the neighborhood is damaged,� Wheeler says.

“All my roots are here,� Jackson says. “A lot of people are desperate.�

Isbell is part of the team. She keeps the crew organized and maintains a database of their repairs. She also puts her skills as a therapist to work, talking to families and helping connect them to services they need.

On the day we met, the three men were finishing a tarp job on the roof of a four-family home owned by Markeesha Perry. As they stood on the roof, they could see a block away as members of the Missouri National Guard were milling around one of four debris sites set up locally.

It’s welcome help, the men said, but it’s not nearly enough.

“The carnage is 360 degrees, everywhere you look,� Wheeler says.

The volunteers descending on the city, and sacrificing their own income opportunities, will eventually have to go back to their jobs. But the need will remain.

What north city requires is serious help from various governments — city, state and federal — that have the resources to do more than three guys with a ladder and adventurous spirit, the men say.

“We need manpower,� Jackson says. “It’s going to take more than a private effort.�