April 27th: One Year Later

As the one year anniversary of the horrible devastation of the April 27th tornadoes draws near, my heart is starting to break once again. I am going to travel back in time to that horrible day, and recall what all I went through. For weeks, James Spann, the wonderful meteorologist with ABC 33/40 news, had been warning us of the possibility of long-track, very dangerous tornadoes on April 27th. On the morning of April 27th about 6:45 am, I was woken by a very strong thunderstorm that knocked out our power. At the time, I was living in my boss's rental house just down the street from where I work. When I realized the power was out, I thought it may be crazy down at the daycare if we didn't have power, so hopped out of bed, brushed my teeth, and headed down to the daycare. Luckily, we only had about 7 children and were not accepting any more due to the power outage. I called to report the outage, and the power company said it would be on by 10:30 am or 11:00 am. It was 7:00 am at the time. Our policy says that if the power will be out for more than 2 hours, we have to contact the parents. After some consideration, we decided to close the daycare for the rest of the day, due to the severe weather headed our way later in the day. Without power, we could not use our telephone or computers to look up parents' numbers, so we had to pull all the files out and use our cell phones to call each of our 75 parents individually. After we finished up with all that at work, I went back to the house to pack up some stuff and head home. I wasn't going to be caught dead in Jacksonville by myself with a dangerous storm situation approaching. I decided I would go to my best friend, Jillian's house and ride out the storm, because Kip was going down to the EMA to help out..leaving me all alone and upset (haha). My parents were at work and my brother was at school so I didn't want to be home alone. I had to take a detour through Weaver, because trees were down on HWY 204 (what was causing the power outage in Jacksonville, later we realized a small tornado came through the area that morning). It took me FOREVER to get to Jillian's house, but I finally made it. We were watching the news all day, and the first evidence of a tornado we saw was the tornado in Cullman. We were watching it LIVE on ABC 33/40's sky cam. That thing looked like a monster.

We continued to watch the weather coverage, until about 5 pm that afternoon....when we watched..LIVE..a massive tornado rip through my beloved city of Tuscaloosa, only to hear that it was headed for Bryant-Denny Stadium and the University of Tuscaloosa campus. Thinking of all the friends and family I had in Tuscaloosa, I began checking facebook to see if any of them had things posted, but I got NOTHING. We watched this power monster of a tornado continue on into Birmingham, knowing that we were going to be in it's path next if it didn't weaken or take a drastic turn, and weakening wasn't an option at the time, as it appeared to be getting stronger.

Jillian started cleaning out her closet and making us a safe place with blankets, pillows, water, flashlights, and candles. We had charged our phones and computers....we were prepared for the worst. At 6:45 pm, Kip called to let us know that we had about 20 minutes until it would hit Etowah County, so we moved our computers and phones into the closet, turned James Spann on the TV in her bedroom, as loud as it would go, and hunkered down. I was monitoring twitter and Jillian was monitoring facebook. Before the rain even got to us, the satellite went out, so no more James Spann on TV. However, I was on his twitter page, and the LAST thing I see before the power went out was "VERY DANGEROUS STORM HEADING TOWARD GADSDEN METRO...ESPECIALLY SOUTHSIDE/GLENCOE"...straight from James Spann. And we were in Southside. When the power went out, so did the internet. We were sitting in the dark, not knowing what was about to happen or where the tornado was at the time. All we could hear was rain and thunder. It got very quiet all of the sudden...which I knew was not a good sign. Then, we hear this sound..it sounded like a roaring train. I knew I had been told that a tornado sounds like a freight train and that was all I could think of...just waiting for it to hit the house. It got very quite again, and then I hear the sound of trees/poles snapping. All of this lasted about 2 to 3 minutes. It was over. Apparently the house had not been hit, because all four walls of the closet were still standing and we still had a roof over our heads. Clai, Jillian's husband, said he was going to go check outside and see what the damage looked like..I just knew there would be so many trees down. He was gone for what seemed like an eternity. I remember telling Jillian that I bet it was horrible outside, because he had not come back yet. He comes back a few minutes later and says that it looks like nothing had happened...no trees down or anything! I was amazed. All those noises we heard...what were they and where were they coming from?? Still with no power, we had no clue as to where this massive tornado was and NO cell phone service...or if it had even made it to us yet. We were trying to find a radio station that would tell us SOMETHING. We finally get a station that is talking about the storms. We hear all sorts of storm reports, but nothing too horrible...until a call comes in that there are houses in the Coosa River in Southside and bodies floating down the river. We heard sirens like crazy going down HWY 77..still not knowing ANYTHING other than what the lady on the radio called in and said. I finally had service to call Kip and find something out. He said that Ohatchee had been hit pretty bad. We were lucky that the tornado went just south of us...and by just south I mean no more than 3 or 4 miles south of us. After things calmed down, we finally went to bed...with no power. We got up the next morning very early and went outside. We gathered up debris that had fallen in Jillian's yard and walked around picking up other stuff throughout the neighborhood. My dad has to drive through Ohatchee to get to work. My mom texts me and tells me that Willow Point in Ohatchee on the river has been hit bad and that houses were in the water, as per my dad. We instantly thought "that must have been what the lady was talking about on the radio last night". We went to Jillian's mom's house to shower and everything since she still did not have power. While we were there, we watched the news...all the news channels were doing all day coverage of the devastation that happened the day before. Hundreds or people were missing and many were already confirmed dead..and the death toll was rising. I just sat and cried as I watched and saw the pictures. That afternoon, I went with Kip to help deliver water and other things to shelters we had throughout the county. I went back to work on Friday and I always go down Gilberts Ferry Road to get to work. Little did I know, a small community on Gilberts Ferry Road had been in the path of the tornado. As I made the curve on Gilberts Ferry, I just stopped in the middle of the road. That small community was LEVELED. Nothing left. Power lines were down in the road, trees and debris everywhere. My heart SANK. My eyes teared up. People were out cleaning up the pieces of their lives that had been destroyed. I wanted to get out and help, but I knew I had to get to work. Over the next few days and weeks, I worked wherever I was needed in the recovery process. Working at Eaglepoint sorting clothes and food and toiletries and toys and anything else you could think of, helping Kip at his farm clean up the trees and debris, doing whatever was needed. I was consumed in that day for months...reading atricles, watching videos, wanting to help. Things slowly began to calm down, the rebuilding process began, and people started getting their lives back into some kind of order. Everyday, I drive through the Gilberts Ferry community, and I have LOVED watching the rebuilding process. Many new houses have been built, and some are still in progress. The wooded areas are being cleared of the fallen trees and the area is starting to look like a community again. One year later, and I still remember every detail of that day. I thank God every day that the tornado did not hit our county, but I hurt for those that were hit by it. Luckily I have never gone through a tornado or had one destroy my home. I cannot imagine what it feels like to stand in front of a pile of what used to be your home, and I hope I never will.