Tornado

Well...it's been an interesting week to say the least. Drove through a couple thunderstorms with intense wind and rain to arrive in AL late Sunday night. Monday was pretty windy throughout the day and then became eerily still around 5. The storm clouds moved in around 5:30 and then came the rain. Kalla and I joined Kerwin, Sara, and company in the preschool to wait out the storm. At one point there were 6 alerts on Weather.com for Athens.

Tuesday was eerily still the entire day until 6 or so. Nothing really came of it, thankfully, since the community was still reeling from Monday night. There were so many trees down and I believe 80 some telephone poles were down on HWY 72 (this was why it was closed for a few miles).

Friday was nice. Kalla and I went to Matthew and Kristy's for a game night. Cartina taught us how to play chicken foot dominoes (it's much more complicated than the dominoes I learned to play as a child). Then today I helped Mike and Pam give out items to their tenants. Here are some pictures:

 

 

Ready to clear debris for parking

Bring it on

Perspective:  The broken post sunk in the ground is supposed to look like the post at the top of the picture. Instead the tornado buried it in the ground with the wire sticking out of the ground a couple feet away. Strange.

Lots of donations came. We handed out free clothing, toiletries, shoes, blankets, bedding, food, drinks, etc. We separated the clothing by size which took quite awhile:)

This is the unit that was torn off its foundation, jumped another unit and landed a hundred feet or so from its original location.

Notice the car in the middle of the house. There was a family in this house when the tornado came through. The mom described how the son was going into the bathroom when the roof began to cave in. He put his arms above his head to protect it and ended up with 2 broken arms. This was the ONLY injury from all the apartments! Is this a God story or what!

 By the way, the family from the above picture has a special situation. They have one other relative in the area whose house was also hit, so finding a place to stay has been an issue. Please pray that God will provide shelter for Angie and her family until their house is rebuilt. Another prayer request would be for all the tenants' financial situation. All but one did not have insurance to cover the items they lost.

The edge of the apartments. Telephone poles were strewn throughout the area. Trees looked pathetic. Brush and debris is everywhere.

The inside of one of the apartments that wasn't completely broken. You'd have to wade through a foot or so of insulation.

This is a different neighborhood. That blue building in the background was the only building in the area untouched by the tornado. This is my friend Freddy's auto repair shop. It has become the central hub for the neighborhood. We've been taking food out there for the people sawing trees to clear them from the roads and off the buildings.

I was trying to capture what Freddy's road looks like with trees down everywhere but missed a good photo opportunity. There were sections that had trees totally across the road and you could tell teams just sawed out the section on the road and left the rest in the ditches. It was like driving through a tunnel.

Check out the garage on this house. The entire south (left) wall of the house is missing.

Another house with roof damage. I did get to help Matthew tarp a roof today. Man it's been a long time since I was on a roof but it was fun.

This is along 72. People were everywhere making brush piles in the ditch to be picked up. There were sections on the road where it got down to 2 lanes (instead of 4 driving lanes and 1 center turn lane) to give the utility cherry pickers room to work on the poles.

Quite a few huge trees were uprooted.

Most of the damage was from trees falling on houses and power lines. And the ditches are still full of water.

This lady was awesome. Connie is a friend of Mike's daughter and came out and worked all day with a bunch of people she didn't know. She and I delivered the extra clothes to the big donation place which was about 2-3 miles down 72. We only lost 3 or 4 pieces of clothing on the way:)

A few more stories. One man was in his apartment when the tornado lifted it off the foundation. Once he realized what was happening and the wall collapsed, he jumped out and landed without a scratch. I don't know how high up he was but this is still absolutely amazing. Another lady I met was telling Ms. Doris and me that she was in the bathroom sitting on the toilet when the tornado came. She was like, "And that thing was just a gurglin'" It was hilarious hearing her tell the story! Most people don't have basements in this part of AL because the water table is too high so they have storm cellars or go to the innermost room of the house (which is usually a bathroom). There are also various storm shelters throughout the area where the public can seek shelter.

The plan now is to keep cutting up trees and begin separating the debris into piles to be taken away. Then the rebuilding can begin.