It was just past dawn on the morning after the worst storms I’d ever seen in this area of the country. I was on my way to work, taking the same route that I take every day. The scenery was as it is every day. Landmarks unknowingly placed along the known route tell me just where I am. I know my way around this area mostly because of these landmarks. The storms that blew through the night before were terrible. According to those who know, there have been storms not unlike this in the past, but this was long before I lived here. This morning, I was totally unaware of what lay ahead on the road. What was familiar had turned into a stranger.The first sign of what had happened the night before was an overturned horse trailer. I thought to myself that the winds had to have been strong to turn that thing over. It was a nonchalant thought, just an innocent observation that I naively found a little amusing. I even chuckled a little. But the chuckle quickly turned into stoic silence and shock. Up ahead, trees laid across the road from both sides. Someone had already gone through and cut the trunks, first on one side of the road, then the other so that I had to zigzag my way up Apison Pike. What I saw was just utter destruction. Houses leveled. Utility poles lying with downed trees. Cars and trucks flipped over and crushed, even wrapped around trees. It was more than I could understand.
As I made my way through the mess, one thing popped in my mind; I didn’t know where I was. Nothing was familiar. It was like my car had been picked up and dropped in a foreign war-torn country. I actually said, “Where am I?” out loud to no one at all. Tears came to my eyes as a tinge of fear crept up on me. Something terrible had happened here. As I drove slowly through the thin layer of fog that added to the confusion, something else popped into my mind…a scene from a story I had read, “The Mist”, by Stephen King. Near the end of the story, the small group of survivors from the small town in Maine (of course!) made their way through an impenetrable fog in a truck along a road, hoping to reach a place where the fog was not. Unfamiliar plants and creatures crossed the path. It was unfamiliar to them. That was how I felt; in unfamiliar territories and lost.
I came to my senses and realized that a tornado had obviously come through here. I was still talking out loud and had tears in my eyes when I thought of my aunt and uncle, who lived a few hundred feet from where I was. When I could finally see their house, it was a relief to see it still standing. With just that little hint, I figured that if they had been inside of it, then they were OK. With that fear somewhat sated, I stopped by their driveway. There was no way I was getting up it. Trees and utility poles lay across it. I saw a woman on the side of the road across from their driveway, a woman I recognized from my days of working at McKee Foods. I rolled down my window and talked to her. I asked if she knew if my aunt and uncle were OK. She didn’t know, but she thought that they were, because some people had been going from house to house to see if people were alive or trapped or needing assistance of any kind. She pointed to a truck on the side of the road and said, “That person died.” She went on to say that her mother, who is wheelchair-bound, was up in her house and had no way of getting out. I told her, without even knowing, that help would be on the way. I left that area and went on towards E. Brainerd Rd. A policeman was sitting at the intersection, talking to the person who was ahead of me. I pulled up beside and heard the man telling the policeman about this woman, so I knew that help really would be on the way.
I headed on to work. I didn’t know what else to do. I suppose I could have skipped work and did all I could to help those who had lost everything. I didn’t. I know that there wasn’t much of anything that I could have done to help those that others weren’t already helping. I had to go to work. Since my power had gone off the night before, I didn’t even know that tornadoes had hit as many places as they did. I had no way of charging my phone, and it had gone dead. The first thing I did when I got to work was to plug it in and try to call my family in Apison. I tried the first person I could think of, especially since I figured all the land lines were down. I called my cousin, Shane. His parents are the members of my family that live right there by the destruction. I got him on the phone after several attempts and found out that yes, they were fine, but that his friend and most of his family had died in the storm. I just couldn’t believe the tragedy. I called my friend Michelle and in talking to her, found out that the storm had come close to where my kids were with their mother. I hung up and called my ex-wife. I couldn’t get an answer when I called. Do you know panic? I felt panic at that moment. Tears came as my mind imagined never seeing my kids again. I called her new husband and he told me everyone was fine. More tears came in the form of relief.
In the days and even weeks since that morning, people in the affected communities have banded together to clean up and try to piece back together portions of lives lost. The places where houses used to stand are now bare patches of earth, mounds of trees and debris burning away, taking memories up in the air with the smoke rising from the pyres. This place will never be the same. The whole landscape and horizon has changed. It will take time for nature to heal from the monster that raged through that day. It will take time for the people to heal, to rebuild from what they have left. Every day, I pass homes that still stand, their roofs covered with blue tarps to protect the roofs that they were fortunate to escape the storm with. People live in those houses with blue tarps; people who still have hope; still have their possessions and their lives.
While the EF4 tornado was ripping through Apison, and on its way to Cleveland, I was at home. The sky here was partly cloudy, even though I could tell that storms were north of me. The wind would pick up, and then taper off. The rain would come, and then let up. I guess I was blissfully unaware and lucky. I still had the ones I love.
My home is a PBS home. If the TV is on, chances are it is on PBS Kids. There is a show on there called “Peep and The Great Wide World.” The main characters are a chick named “Peep,” a baby bird named “Chirp,” and a baby duck named “Quack.” Even when my kids are not here, the TV is left on, mainly for company and entertainment for my bird. I can’t lie and say that I don’t eavesdrop on the programming, cause, well…I do. Just a few days ago, the story of “Peep” involved the coming of a storm. They had never seen a storm before. They grey clouds covered the sky and they didn’t move on, so they thought they would never go away. The rain started coming down, and they thought it would always rain. The only thing they saw that they could do was to get up and move from their homes; to try and find a place where there were no storms, no rain, no dark clouds. They decided to leave home, but before going, they wanted to visit their friend, a dog. The dog explained that storms never last forever. They move on and leave their mark on where they’ve been. The rains supply life to the trees and grasses that they lived in and played on. The ponds fill back up for swimming pleasure. The sun does come back out. And if you’re lucky, a rainbow supplies the background for a fade-to-black ending…
These storms are gone. They will leave a lasting impression upon the land and our memories. Those who perished have been buried and those who survived still live on. The cleanup continues and the people still work together. It is said that time heals all wounds. I believe it to be so. Time will heal the wounds in all areas; in nature, by replenishing the trees that were torn apart; in hearts, with the love shown for each other not only now, but for all time to come; in our minds by the wonderful phenomenon of filing and forgetting. One thing that I do hope for is that the camaraderie shown during this trying time doesn’t just disappear in an instant. After all, the blue tarps will eventually come down and hopefully, when they do, people will still be there for each other like they should be every day.
Remember, I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. “In case we never meet again, I love you.”
