Remembering T-Town- 4.27.11
Ashley's Song...
Three years ago tomorrow, countless lives were changed forever... And it was the first time I would understand what all that entails. Before that day, the phrase, 'countless lives' was just a headline I saw as I searched for the sports section. I learned that week that the horrific pictures we see far too often can never capture the tragedy the person behind the lens is seeing. I saw destruction... I saw death.
Much like most of you, I've never paid much attention to weather warnings. The odds of those suspender-sporting men on TV being right were almost impossible! As I watched them all perspire in nervous anticipation the morning of April 27th, 2011, something was different. Something scared me. I will never be able to understand why, but I knew this day was different.
That day, I called my sister at least 70 times. I lost count of the texts. Being friends with some storm trackers, I knew she was directly in the line of fire. She & her best friend, Alex, were roomies at The Retreat at the time. And by 2 pm, they'd had their share of me. I'd had this growing dread all day & I just knew that this time, it would be horrifying.
Ash & Alex realized how serious things were when it was too late to find shelter. They went to their roommate's room, grabbed the mattress, & hid in her closet. As those sweet girls sat in darkness, with nothing but a mattress to shield them, they heard sounds & screams that will forever be etched into their psyche. As for me? The last picture I received from my sister before the phone lines went down looked just like this. This is her view from The Retreat. I'd find out later that just one block over had been completely destroyed. After this text, I couldn't get in touch with her. I did everything & I finally hit the floor. I remember laying there in the middle of my living room thinking, "What can I do". For 2 hours, I sobbed. I prayed. And then I got a text! She was okay!!!! She & Alex had ventured out to see the damage. She said that you could never imagine the darkness that night. Everything was black...
The Saturday after the tornado, our mom & Ash decided to meet me over there & volunteer. Ash had gone home the morning after the storm like most of the students at The Capstone. She & mom planned to meet me at Skyland Mall because I was too afraid to see the topography I'd known my whole life transformed... The land I'd loved for over 20 years was forever changed. I crawled in the back seat of mom's Yukon & we began the journey down McFarland Blvd. Everything was fine, all was normal.... But as we passed the park beside the old Bruno's, I couldn't even breathe. I saw DCH Hospital.
YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT FROM HERE!!! I wept....
That day, we weren't volunteers. Yet we weren't voyeurs either... Looking back, I'm pretty sure Ash was in shock & really just needed to come to grips with her own mortality. I guess I just needed to process how close I'd come to losing her. And I think our sweet mother was just praising God the whole time that she had us with her. That day, we walked. We walked everywhere.
First stop, Alberta City... It was just one block from my sister's home & I think the devastation there really affected us all the most. The tornado curved at University Boulevard that day. If it hadn't, this would be a memorial blog to my baby sister. And it takes my breath away just thinking about that.
We walked through the rubble that was left. We found a brick home that had been completely destroyed and all that stood was an aquarium... Right in the middle of the dining room! We were surrounded by crumbled walls and broken bricks yet this aquarium sat there untouched and so out of place with it's surroundings. We would find out later we were just steps away from bodies lost to the storm that wouldn't be found for at least 5 more days. Alberta City was gone.
The Forest Lake Neighborhood is familiar to anyone who travels to T-town... Right off 15th Street, the big, beautiful trees shaded the cozy homes around the lake like a painting rather than real life. It was the Norman Rockwell part of T-Town... Walking thru the neighborhood was probably the hardest of all I saw that day. Maybe it was the wedding dress someone had tried to salvage that was swaying in the wind, hanging from the trunk of a tree... All that was left of one of the beautiful trees that once offered shade to the people of Forest Lake. Maybe it was the cottage I'd always loved so much that I finally got to see what the inside looked like. Whatever it was, Forest Lake was gone.
Perhaps it was when we finally made the trip to Cedar Crest, did the magnitude of it all sink in. As we continued our walk that day through the destruction, it was one boy & his dog that stopped us in our tracks. We had walked for miles all day. It was so hot & the air was filthy. You could wipe away the sweat from your face & the tissue would be completely black. The death and destruction in the air was actually visible. As we entered Cedar Crest, we glanced to our left to see the garage of a home that sported the spray painted message, "It's Joe. I'm fine. Go away!". Battling whether to laugh or cry, we wiped the soot coated sweat from our brows & turned right.
THE STORY OF BEAR
As we made our way down the street, we stopped and stared at a boy and his dog digging thru what is hard to imagine had ever been their home. We stopped & talked to the guy & heard a story that will stay with us forever. The guy had 2 roommates & they were all fraternity brothers. It was pizza night at the frat house & they had put their 2 dogs in their crates while they went to dinner. The tornado hit while they were gone. Desperate to get to their dogs, they tried to get back after the tornado struck but couldn't due to police blockades. Like any good furbaby daddy would, they found a way in...
They were greeted with the same darkness my sister had described. Except they heard the screams of their neighbors, trapped among the rubble that they all once called home. Their house was gone & they knew there was no way Bear & his brother could survive. But as they got closer, Bear
was sitting where his porch used to stand. Somehow as his home got destroyed, Bear escaped his crate & found his family again. Sadly, his brother was nowhere to be found. But a week later, he would find his way home, too! As we looked at the pile of sticks that Bear and his dad once called home, we looked directly across the street to another house. This one almost unscathed from this horrific event. That's when Bear's dad told us he lost 3 friends there. They had heard their screams that dark night but couldn't get to them. The bodies of three students would be found here huddled in the bathroom of that home later.
Cedar Crest was gone....
Fall of that year came and the topography couldn't let you forget what had happened. And one sleepy Sunday morning, I realized how even the smallest things had affected our T-town brethren. After waking up from a night of Alabama football, I was going to get my sister the breakfast burrito she loves so much... When I woke her & asked her where to go, she looked at me with complete confusion. "Sister, you'll have to go to Skyland Blvd. to find a drive-thru". I know that seems minor to you, but when the little things we take for granted are taken away, the enormity of it all is overwhelming.
Tuscaloosa suffered much loss that day. I'll never get to drive back down McFarland Blvd. with the same eager anticipation I once did. Innocence was lost. Lives were lost. But Tuscaloosa rose above the tragedy that day. It'll take time to rebuild & there will be new memories. My mama had a pretty epic quote today... "Tuscaloosa just keeps rolling". She was so right....
Life is about so much more than football. But in the fall of 2011, I believe it was that sport that helped so many come together and heal. Even after suffering a loss to LSU in November, our team was able to overcome and defeat them in a rematch, never even letting them cross the 50 yard line. Instead of letting the tornado define them, the people of Tuscaloosa decided to live in vision rather than circumstance. Kevin Elko once said, "Attitude isn't a gene, it's a muscle". And my beloved T-town has been flexing theirs ever since that fateful day in April.....
Roll T-Town Roll!!!!!!!
Inspired by Ashley Garrett, Alex Mullens, Andy Hague, Nicole Schimmel, & Bronson Langston. You kids are always in my heart...
I wrote a song for my sister after the events of April 11th. Josh Patrick captured it for me.
Three years ago tomorrow, countless lives were changed forever... And it was the first time I would understand what all that entails. Before that day, the phrase, 'countless lives' was just a headline I saw as I searched for the sports section. I learned that week that the horrific pictures we see far too often can never capture the tragedy the person behind the lens is seeing. I saw destruction... I saw death.
Much like most of you, I've never paid much attention to weather warnings. The odds of those suspender-sporting men on TV being right were almost impossible! As I watched them all perspire in nervous anticipation the morning of April 27th, 2011, something was different. Something scared me. I will never be able to understand why, but I knew this day was different.
That day, I called my sister at least 70 times. I lost count of the texts. Being friends with some storm trackers, I knew she was directly in the line of fire. She & her best friend, Alex, were roomies at The Retreat at the time. And by 2 pm, they'd had their share of me. I'd had this growing dread all day & I just knew that this time, it would be horrifying.
The Saturday after the tornado, our mom & Ash decided to meet me over there & volunteer. Ash had gone home the morning after the storm like most of the students at The Capstone. She & mom planned to meet me at Skyland Mall because I was too afraid to see the topography I'd known my whole life transformed... The land I'd loved for over 20 years was forever changed. I crawled in the back seat of mom's Yukon & we began the journey down McFarland Blvd. Everything was fine, all was normal.... But as we passed the park beside the old Bruno's, I couldn't even breathe. I saw DCH Hospital.
YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO SEE THAT FROM HERE!!! I wept....
That day, we weren't volunteers. Yet we weren't voyeurs either... Looking back, I'm pretty sure Ash was in shock & really just needed to come to grips with her own mortality. I guess I just needed to process how close I'd come to losing her. And I think our sweet mother was just praising God the whole time that she had us with her. That day, we walked. We walked everywhere.
 |
| The Stairway To Nowhere |
 | ||
| Ash's first look at the devastation just blocks from where she was. |
The Forest Lake Neighborhood is familiar to anyone who travels to T-town... Right off 15th Street, the big, beautiful trees shaded the cozy homes around the lake like a painting rather than real life. It was the Norman Rockwell part of T-Town... Walking thru the neighborhood was probably the hardest of all I saw that day. Maybe it was the wedding dress someone had tried to salvage that was swaying in the wind, hanging from the trunk of a tree... All that was left of one of the beautiful trees that once offered shade to the people of Forest Lake. Maybe it was the cottage I'd always loved so much that I finally got to see what the inside looked like. Whatever it was, Forest Lake was gone.
Perhaps it was when we finally made the trip to Cedar Crest, did the magnitude of it all sink in. As we continued our walk that day through the destruction, it was one boy & his dog that stopped us in our tracks. We had walked for miles all day. It was so hot & the air was filthy. You could wipe away the sweat from your face & the tissue would be completely black. The death and destruction in the air was actually visible. As we entered Cedar Crest, we glanced to our left to see the garage of a home that sported the spray painted message, "It's Joe. I'm fine. Go away!". Battling whether to laugh or cry, we wiped the soot coated sweat from our brows & turned right.
THE STORY OF BEAR
As we made our way down the street, we stopped and stared at a boy and his dog digging thru what is hard to imagine had ever been their home. We stopped & talked to the guy & heard a story that will stay with us forever. The guy had 2 roommates & they were all fraternity brothers. It was pizza night at the frat house & they had put their 2 dogs in their crates while they went to dinner. The tornado hit while they were gone. Desperate to get to their dogs, they tried to get back after the tornado struck but couldn't due to police blockades. Like any good furbaby daddy would, they found a way in...
They were greeted with the same darkness my sister had described. Except they heard the screams of their neighbors, trapped among the rubble that they all once called home. Their house was gone & they knew there was no way Bear & his brother could survive. But as they got closer, Bear
Cedar Crest was gone....
Fall of that year came and the topography couldn't let you forget what had happened. And one sleepy Sunday morning, I realized how even the smallest things had affected our T-town brethren. After waking up from a night of Alabama football, I was going to get my sister the breakfast burrito she loves so much... When I woke her & asked her where to go, she looked at me with complete confusion. "Sister, you'll have to go to Skyland Blvd. to find a drive-thru". I know that seems minor to you, but when the little things we take for granted are taken away, the enormity of it all is overwhelming.
Tuscaloosa suffered much loss that day. I'll never get to drive back down McFarland Blvd. with the same eager anticipation I once did. Innocence was lost. Lives were lost. But Tuscaloosa rose above the tragedy that day. It'll take time to rebuild & there will be new memories. My mama had a pretty epic quote today... "Tuscaloosa just keeps rolling". She was so right....
Life is about so much more than football. But in the fall of 2011, I believe it was that sport that helped so many come together and heal. Even after suffering a loss to LSU in November, our team was able to overcome and defeat them in a rematch, never even letting them cross the 50 yard line. Instead of letting the tornado define them, the people of Tuscaloosa decided to live in vision rather than circumstance. Kevin Elko once said, "Attitude isn't a gene, it's a muscle". And my beloved T-town has been flexing theirs ever since that fateful day in April.....
Roll T-Town Roll!!!!!!!
Inspired by Ashley Garrett, Alex Mullens, Andy Hague, Nicole Schimmel, & Bronson Langston. You kids are always in my heart...
I wrote a song for my sister after the events of April 11th. Josh Patrick captured it for me.
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