Tedder Boulevard, the neighborhood street of my childhood is completely unrecognizable today after being ravaged by an F-3 tornado at 12:40 p.m. on April 10, 2009. Good Friday.
At the time the tornado hit, my youngest brother Aaron was cowering in the downstairs bathroom half a mile away. The winds howled like continuous thunder. The sides of the house were being pelted by debris. And my brother was thinking, "Am I going to die alone in this bathroom today."
Bill McKay, a neighborhood friend, and his wife were huddling together in their kitchen. Gripped with fear, they watched as debris shot into their house - splattering their living room with mud. With creaks and groans their roof was torn from the house by the twister. McKay's wife suffered slashes from glass flying in the room. Thankfully they live.
Down the street, unfortunately, a young couple with their nine-week-old baby was running to their vehicle and abandon their soon-to-be destroyed home. Mother and daughter were ripped from the bounds of this earth before escaping. The husband broke his back, collapsed his lungs and survived with nothing more than his life. No wife. No daughter. No house.
Children, home for Good Friday, were together in fear while their home was torn to shreads.
Homes were obliterated by more than 130 mph winds. They were torn apart as though Mother Earth was a demonic force with gnashing teeth capable of uprooting trees and making houses explode into splinters with her breath.
An hour before the tornado hit, I picked up my step father Allen to give him a tour of projects I'm working on in Mt. Juliet and Nashville. We checked the weather to see if it would be okay to go ahead with our plans. We decided our path would avoid the storm line enough and decided to travel to Mt. Juliet.
I am so very thankful that no one in our family was hurt during the tornado.
When Allen and I returned to the neighborhood it was as though a bomb had exploded. People had begun to come out of their homes. Emergency personnel had arrived.
Police instructed us that if we wanted to see our home, then we needed to park our car and walk.
"Can you do me a favor and park your vehicle so it blocks the street from other cars passing," the officer requested. I obliged.
As we walked down Henry Hall Drive straight toward our house, we were in shock. Homes were reduced to rubble. The roof beams of other homes were exposed like human rib cages without skin. The pugnant smell of natural gas filled the air as though we were walking through a war zone.
Our home only suffered wind damage. A house two doors up Henry Hall Drive was completely destroyed. A few doors down Tedder Boulevard we saw a two-story home. The problem was we could see inside the living room on the second floor. A man was walking in the room and picking up the leftovers from the storm.
"I need you to get out of the house now," yelled a police officer.
At the time the tornado hit, my youngest brother Aaron was cowering in the downstairs bathroom half a mile away. The winds howled like continuous thunder. The sides of the house were being pelted by debris. And my brother was thinking, "Am I going to die alone in this bathroom today."
Bill McKay, a neighborhood friend, and his wife were huddling together in their kitchen. Gripped with fear, they watched as debris shot into their house - splattering their living room with mud. With creaks and groans their roof was torn from the house by the twister. McKay's wife suffered slashes from glass flying in the room. Thankfully they live.
Down the street, unfortunately, a young couple with their nine-week-old baby was running to their vehicle and abandon their soon-to-be destroyed home. Mother and daughter were ripped from the bounds of this earth before escaping. The husband broke his back, collapsed his lungs and survived with nothing more than his life. No wife. No daughter. No house.
Children, home for Good Friday, were together in fear while their home was torn to shreads.
Homes were obliterated by more than 130 mph winds. They were torn apart as though Mother Earth was a demonic force with gnashing teeth capable of uprooting trees and making houses explode into splinters with her breath.
An hour before the tornado hit, I picked up my step father Allen to give him a tour of projects I'm working on in Mt. Juliet and Nashville. We checked the weather to see if it would be okay to go ahead with our plans. We decided our path would avoid the storm line enough and decided to travel to Mt. Juliet.
I am so very thankful that no one in our family was hurt during the tornado.
When Allen and I returned to the neighborhood it was as though a bomb had exploded. People had begun to come out of their homes. Emergency personnel had arrived.
Police instructed us that if we wanted to see our home, then we needed to park our car and walk.
"Can you do me a favor and park your vehicle so it blocks the street from other cars passing," the officer requested. I obliged.
As we walked down Henry Hall Drive straight toward our house, we were in shock. Homes were reduced to rubble. The roof beams of other homes were exposed like human rib cages without skin. The pugnant smell of natural gas filled the air as though we were walking through a war zone.
Our home only suffered wind damage. A house two doors up Henry Hall Drive was completely destroyed. A few doors down Tedder Boulevard we saw a two-story home. The problem was we could see inside the living room on the second floor. A man was walking in the room and picking up the leftovers from the storm.
"I need you to get out of the house now," yelled a police officer.
I stepped carefully over electric cables, utility poles, wires, pieces of roof and brick. This is my neighborhood now.
The day after the tornado, my wife Claudia and I went to Tedder Boulevard to help clean up debris that landed in the yard of my childhood home. After an hour, there was a small pile of lumber, shingles, bills and checks from neighbors half a mile away, buckets and other items.
"You know, we're picking up this lumber and tossing it in a pile as though it were trash," I said to Aaron. "But this is a piece of some one's home."
And looking up the street, the vision of devastation to the homes in front of us was almost too much to comprehend. We were very blessed.
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