I don't have an amazing story to share about what happened on 4-27-11 because neither my house nor my place of employment was directly affected by a tornado. But what I do have is my story. For a year now, I have thought about blogging what it was like, but my story is nowhere near as important or news worthy as those who lived through a tornado that day. My story is about cows. Yes, cows. Don't laugh....you will see why later.
Four to five days out from 4/27, the local and national weathermen had warned us that we were in for a massive outbreak. But I, like many others from this area, kinda brushed it off and thought "This won't be anything". And then the day before, I can remember a local weatherman just hounding us over and over that we should be prepared.....it could be "catastrophic". I started to take the warning more seriously, especially when I awoke to the weather alarm going off at 5:20 that next morning. Kevin and I gathered the kids up, loaded up in the truck and drove next door to the storm hole. I remember thinking to myself "this is going to be a long day". And boy was I right. Once that storm passed over, we headed back home to get ready for the work and school day. Yep, still mad that our school system allowed our children to go to school that day with sirens going off all morning. I guess I could have made a call as a parent to keep them home, but I didn't. So anyway....the TV weatherman, Brad, said a tornado had just hit Guntersville. I panic. My dad lives in Guntersville. So I call him....no answer. I call 2 or 3 more times before leaving for work and still no answer. I finally reached him when I got to work, and he was fine. The houses on both sides of him had been hit and all their trees and debris were in his yard. But he was safe. And a little shook up....apparently he had been on the back porch overlooking the lake and drinking a cup of coffee when the tornado hit, and he took cover at the last minute. He had not been watching the news, so he had no idea of what was bearing down on his area. If any of you know my dad, you know that's pretty normal for him....not having a clue. :)
Back at work, everyone is having a hard time getting any work done for all the warnings we're having to take cover for, and for the sheer fact of being human and wanting to listen to what is going on everywhere. People are gathered around radios, internet feeds, TV's....just listening to the devastation taking place all around us. Then the warning of a tornado in Lauderdale county headed to Limestone county. I call my mom to go get the kids from school. She gets them back home safely. They are all upset about what's going on. The first Limestone county tornado hits around 11:30am....my parents and babies are in the storm hole. I'm at work. What a helpless feeling. I get the call soon after the storm passed that they are all ok. This same process goes on all day. Over and over. I keep thinking I should go home. But when? How do I know I can make that 35-40 minute drive and not run into a tornado? There is a small window that I do finally realize I can make it home, but I had a 4:00 conf call at work that I felt like I didn't need to miss. So I decide to stay. To this day, I am still haunted by the decision that I chose work over my kids and husband that day. This isn't just a normal day.....this is a day in hell. A day like no other in my life, and one that I hope to never experience again. Any other day, it would not have been a big deal to stay at work for a call. But this day was different. This day changed my life....for the better.
But back to the story....we have our conf call. After it's over, I go back to my office and pull up the news feed. And I see it....the monster that devastated by beloved second home, Tuscaloosa. It is huge. I cannot believe what I'm looking at as the tower camera catches it ripping up the city I love like an old newspaper. I see it barrelling toward the stadium and the university....and it misses. But when it missed those areas, it completely tore up the other areas....15th Street, McFarland, Alberta City. I was sitting there in tears. What a tragedy, and just knowing the number of young lives in that city. Each one of them running, ducking, hiding, holding on, screaming, crying, praying.....what devastation. Oh how the parents must have felt not knowing if their child was safe. Little did any of us know at that time what kind of stories would unfold in the following days....the pain and emotion Carson Tinker must have felt as his girlfriend was ripped out of his arms and they were thrown hundreds of yards. The pain the student felt as he was hovering just above ground level and then thrown into a fence row. Story after story, it was all so haunting. And then there's my story.....
I finally left work at 6:00pm. It was still daylight, and there was a small window of opportunity for me to get home. Little did I know that it would be 3 hours and 36 minutes later before I pulled into my driveway. The roads were packed....people scurrying to get home, to check on loved ones, to sight see. I am feeling ok and not very nervous as I drive down Research Park Blvd. But then I get to Hwy 53, and the road is blocked. No one is allowed through because of the tornado that ripped through Anderson Hills...for the 3rd time in 17 years. Debris is all over the road, so there is not thru traffic. We are being diverted to Blake Bottom Road. I start to get a little antsy trying to plan out my route to get home. Do I go Blake Bottom to Jeff? Or do I turn on Indian Springs and go that way? Should I get to Nick Davis and try to go East Limestone? Or should I turn around and go back out research to Pulaski Pike and go home that way. But wait, wouldn't the tornado that hit Anderson Hills have gone through that area as well? I am screwed. I am in pre-panic mode at this time because the weather is picking up a little bit at this point. There are blown limbs and debris all over Blake Bottom and the trees left standing are now bending over almost touching the ground because of the wind that has just picked up. I don't hear anything on the radio at that time of a tornado headed toward me, so I calm down for a few minutes. I finally get to Jeff Road and try to go home that way. Traffic is NOT moving! I turn around and head down Nick Davis. I'm determined to get to East Limestone....little do I know of the amount of damage that has been done to that community. I slowly make my way over tree limbs and flooded roads to get to Nick Davis. I can see there are very few cars trying to get through the area. I come up on my first problem....how do I get through this pile of tree limbs laying on the road. I decide to drive over them....and I do. And then I come up on the prison and that's where I see them.....the cows. There are so many dead cows in the road and in the ditches. I freeze and stop the truck. What in the world? I start having a small panic attack by the sights of the cows....and then I see the one cow that has haunted me for 365 days. He is standing on the side of the ditch, next to the prison drive. He is standing there, completely still. I can tell he is shocked. This cow has just been thrown no telling how far, and he survived. All he can do is just stand there and look down at the ground. He is frozen in his tracks. There are two cars pulled up behind me waiting on me to go on. But I can't. I cannot take my eyes off this cow. I just start crying. The cars go around me. And I'm still staring at this cow. Did the cow panic like we would have done? Did the cow lose a calf in the tornado? Was he sucked up in the tornado and tossed around like a rag doll? How is this cow feeling? A thousand thoughts, feelings and questions went through my head while sitting in the middle of the road looking at this cow. And then....a warning comes on the radio. Another possible tornado headed that way. I finally gather myself and start driving toward East Limestone Road, but all the cars in front of me are turning around and coming back. When I see this, I do the same. No need in me trying either. So I go back by that poor cow, drive around all those dead ones and drive over those limbs again. I head through the flooded roads again and find Old Railroad Bed Road. I can't go towards 53 because I can see the roads are blocked off, so I head towards Hwy 72. I am beginng to get hysterical realizing that any option I take is going to be blocked because of the number of tornardoes that have hit every possible route home. I can't get into my sister in law's subdivision because it's flooded, so I keep driving. Kevin and the kids are callling me....mad because I didn't leave work. I'm crying, not knowing where I'm going, how I'm going to get home. And then I hear a tornado was spotted heading toward the Old Railroad Bed Road area. Great, just great. I pull into a subdivision and pull into someone's driveway. I just sit there crying, ready to be blown away. My mom calls....we get disconnected. Kevin calls yelling and telling me to head to 72. We get disconnected. And I thought "oh hell no, I'm not getting blown away just sitting here. it's gonna have to take me down while I'm trying to save myself." And just like that, I pull back out and drive down the road a little further and come up Good Shephard Methodist Church.,...one that I hear as always being a storm shelter. God truly lead me that way. I was actually smiling through the sobs. I pull in and run inside the church. There are hundreds of us in there, but I'm all alone. What a feeling. A wall cloud was spotted moving over the church, and when it passes, one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen.....a bright orange sky. We all rushed to the doors and walked outside to see. At that moment, I had such a calm come over me. I knew God was with me and would get me home. At this point, I'm starting to lose daylight, so I decide I need to leave. I make it to Hwy 72, and I start trucking along. I call Kevin again and he tells me to take 72 all the way to 65, and I should get there safely. Thank goodness! But no, it wouldn't be that easy. It's now dark, and as I top the hill at East Limestone, I see traffic at a stand still just ahead of me. So I take a chance and turn down East Limestone because a lady on the radio had said just 10 minutes beforehand that it was clear. Really? What was she smoking? I get up to the fire station and can barely see the beginnings of the destruction of what the tornado left behind. We are at a stand still. I start crying again because now what am I truly going to do? I call Kevin....and he tells me to calm down and just wait it out cause there's no other option at this point and the bad weather is over. About 30 minutes later, traffic is moving toward me. That's a good sign. It's not until I can get down the road a little to realize that what we were waiting for was someone to make a path on the road so we could get through. And when I say path, I mean the bare minimum. I have a huge scratch the entire length of my Suburban from where a broken tree limb engraved it's existence. I drove over a tree large enough to take out my undercarriage, but I didn't care. I was getting home. But as I was driving through all of this, I could see destroyed house after house. I couldn't make out a whole lot, but I knew enough. This place was gone. This was the same tornado that killed those cows. As I made it through the trees, I could see nothing but clear roads ahead of me. I pulled into my driveway at 9:36pm and could do nothing but walk inside my mom's house and sit down. I couldn't really talk about things I had seen. But the one thing I did tell them about was the cow. Oh how he must have felt.
And so today as I type this, I am thankful I don't have an exciting story. But I do have my story. And the cow's story.
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