The Destruction that Changed My Outlook, and My Faith

April 15^th, 2011: My mom and I left last minute instructions for my younger siblings, climbed into the car, and headed to Mobile for Freshman registration. I remember being super excited, I had finally chosen a college to attend, it was time to register, and I had been accepted into the Honors program, something I knew nothing about. I don’t remember much about the car ride from Tuscaloosa to Mobile, except for a comment made about the way the weather looked that morning and the clouds looking incredibly ominous as we left Tuscaloosa. I remember getting to the school and silently laughing at the irony of the fact it was raining, as it had been the first time I’d visited two months before, at the school, even though I’d been assured the weather wasn’t always that bad. And to think I believed those people. At the time I was a Sociology major, so who should I get as my advisor? Why Dr. Talmage of course, he told me a little about what the Honors program entailed, and helped me pick out my schedule. Then he pointed me in Dr. Olsen’s direction, because my letter told me to see either Dr. Olsen or Dr. Mitchell, and Dr. Mitchell was nowhere to be found. Then, as some random happenstance, I met Jeremy Crews, who further explained what the Honors program was about, and how the paper he was writing was driving him insane. Then I registered, had my picture taken for my ID card, and sat with my mother to wait to talk to Financial Aid. It was during this period of time that my mother got a call from my sister, the weather in Tuscaloosa was horrendous and there were tornado warnings in the area, and my siblings were home alone. She got the TV in Weaver turned to the weather channel so she could see what was happening, and I remember my stomach clenching as we waited to see what would happen. A tornado hit Tuscaloosa that day, about seven miles from where my siblings were home alone and less than a quarter of a mile from my church. The destruction wasn’t really that bad, but nobody in the town knew what was coming next.

The day continued with increasing bad weather, though there was enough of a break in the weather to get a great shot of me and my mom out by the Ram. I met my future roommate, but not the one I have right now, and continued to get increasingly more excited about coming to the school that had, less than two weeks previous, not been my first choice in schools. And then came the drive home. The weather was terrible, rain, wind, thunder, lightning, and about halfway home, we got stuck after a tornado went thorough. We sat in our car, barely moving, for almost 3 hours, waiting for the roads to clear, and it wasn’t until we got past the damage that we found out the tornado had gone through less than fifteen minutes before we had arrived on the scene. It was a humbling experience for me, but it didn’t really affect me yet. Monday, April 18^th, life went on as usual, I had classes at the Community College in the morning, and I had to babysit that afternoon, life seemed normal. And then I drove past the little stretch of destruction where the tornado had briefly set down just three days earlier, and everything was not quit normal. As the days went on, life got a little more normal, and I got used to driving past the little stretch of destruction as I went to and from my babysitting job.

April 27^th, 2011

Around 2 AM, the tornado sirens went off. All our windows were open, suddenly there were two loud cracks from our back yard, lightning and the wind had knocked the top off of two of our trees, one right next to the house. Somehow it didn’t wake me, but my sister coming into my room to tell me to shut the windows did. Then the sirens stopped going off, and we went back to bed. I woke up at about 6 or 7 and got ready for the day. I had a dentist appointment, piano class, and I had to take my sister babysitting where I would join her when I finished. Mom looked at me that morning and said something about being careful because the weather was expected to get terrible and was I sure we needed to babysit. I wasn’t that worried at the time, and I needed the money. I wasn’t that thrilled about having to go to the dentist because I was getting a filling. But I was thrilled about the prospect of possibly missing my piano class, my wrist was hurting and I hadn’t exactly practiced my song all that much during the week. I remember getting to the dentist and getting finished much quicker than I expected to and I remember being rushed out because the weather was so menacing. I went ahead over to the community college and got my lesson out of the way, though it was shorter than usual. And then I went to join my sister, only to have her rush to the car, the lady we were babysitting for was worried about the weather and wanted us to be safe at home. And so home we went, we never lost power during the day, unlike many other people, we lost phone and internet for a few days, but that was nothing. We got ready for the storm we knew was coming, thanks to the path shown on the weather. I remember being entranced by the paths of the different tornados as they traced along the state, and being scared for friends who were in the paths of the different tornados. Then the warning was issued for Tuscaloosa county, and the time of impact kept getting later and later. Finally, it was approaching Tuscaloosa, I remember getting my younger siblings into my parents bathroom, and sitting on my mom’s bed, refusing to believe that we’d be affected. We were watching James Spann and we were watching the path of the tornado from the sky cam on top of the courthouse. Mom left the room for a minute, it was still far enough away that we weren’t in any immediate danger. While she was out of the room, I remember hearing James Spann say that the tornado was above Kauloosa Avenue. My heart dropped, that’s where my dad was, still at work. My sister and I didn’t say anything to mom, we didn’t want to worry her at that point. The path of the tornado was about 2 miles, as the crow flies, from my house. But we didn’t suffer any damage from it, unlike a lot of the city. My dad called about 30 minutes after the tornado had passed and said, I’m okay, I have to go. We didn’t hear from him for over three or four hours that night.

I’ve written all this in response to something Dr. Mitchell said in class today, about destruction being set apart. And it’s true, that tornado was set apart and used by God. Yes, there was mass destruction across the South that day, but the path of that tornado veered merely seconds before hitting a hospital full of people. The hospital was unscathed. The path of the tornado veered right before hitting my dad’s plant head on, and only hit the corner. The only injury they had at that plant, was a broken toe. The guy from Fox News told my mom the story of how he’d been across the street from my dad’s plant watching as the tornado approached my dad’s plant and how it veered and hit the end opposite where all the employees were at the time. Only the hand of God could have turned that tornado. We have reason to fear God, only He could unleash something as powerful and destructive as that tornado. But only He could keep that tornado from causing more deaths than the 47 in Tuscaloosa. Even now, driving through Tuscaloosa, there is evidence of the destruction everywhere, and every time I see it, I am reminded of the strength, power, and graciousness of our God.

I know that there’s no blog post due this week, but I had most of this thing written in my mind during Honors today and had to write it out, especially with the one year anniversary approaching in a little over two weeks.

The April 27^th tornado as it approached Tuscaloosa as seen from the County Courthouse Sky Cam, this is what I was watching as it went through the city, until the sky cam went out that is.

Youtube link to James Spann coverage of the tornado, the exact coverage I was watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI5TONMSYtE He says something about the day going down in state history, it went down as a national disaster. 9:36 is when they mention Kauloosa avenue, but right before that is when he says something about the size, it was over a mile wide by the time it got to Tuscaloosa.

Anyway, sorry for the LONG blog post, but I had to get this out. Until next time,

~Meghan

P.S. When I wrote this originally, I had no idea it was so eerily similar to what Dr. Mitchell would say in class on Tuesday.

P.P.S. I commented on Malory's post.