When a tornado hits close to home
It’s an odd feeling when you hear on the police scanner that a tornado has touched down literally in your backyard.
That’s exactly what happened Friday afternoon when the alarms first went out pinpointing ground zero of the tornado touchdown as being right in the middle of the neighborhood where I’ve lived for the last year. It made for a long trip through the blinding rain and sheering winds, wondering if I still had a house standing, all the time the reports on the scanner suggesting my house was among those swept away by the fast-moving storm. It puts things in perspective as the story takes on a personal stake, that of my family home.
Now I’m not saying reporters are immune to disaster, as I’ve often told new reporters that what we see in covering the news will eventually come around to us, meaning we all get our turn, whether it be a tornado in our neighborhood, a wreck that injures one of us or our friends, or a fire which takes our home or a family member’s home. It’s everyone’s turn sooner or later. Friday it was my block’s turn.
As I made my way over the downed trees and utility lines, seeing I had to park half a mile away due to the damage which was blocking the road, I feared the worst, although I knew my family was safe and secure at the office where I had convinced them to come just before the storm hit. (I now believe in premonitions by the way, this perhaps being the topic of my next column).
Working my way up the hill on Beacon Drive, the damage looked worse and worse as I got closer to my home, emergency workers running from door to door to check the heavily damaged houses to make sure everyone was all right. It was at that point, as I was about to crest the hill where my house was, I got a call from my wife who had heard from our neighbors that our house was still standing. Moments later I saw for myself and breathed a sigh of relief just for an instant. We lost just part of a tree, some roof shingles and part of our fence to the storm and my dog was in the neighbor’s yard.
However, my relief was just temporary as not everyone was so fortunate, although everyone is thankful no one was injured in the storm. The block I returned to Friday afternoon looked a lot different than the one I left that morning as a glance out my back window even this morning was still a surreal image.
The neighbor located adjacent to my back yard had his garage sheered away. The neighbors across from him had their houses virtually destroyed. All I can see from my back yard is twisted tree tops and roofless houses. A short walk down the block revealed damage on virtually every house, some structures which will have to knocked down and built again from scratch.
But, as with most dark clouds, there was a silver lining, as with the disaster came acts of kindness by neighbors and total strangers as scores of people banded together the day of and the day after the twister to go yard by yard to help clean up the damage. Meanwhile utility crews worked around the clock to restore services and a bit of normalcy to the block while road crews worked even Sunday to help haul away the debris.
The way I look at it, it is in the worst of times that you find out what kind of mettle people are made of, and once again the people of Warren County have proven they are made of a strong mettle, something you don’t find just anywhere. Why would you want to live in Warren County? Look no further than my neighborhood.
Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].