**DISCLAIMER: Hey, y’all. If you’re reading this, you know me or someone who does. I thought I’d make use of that journalism degree and writeup what we experienced in a little more detail. We also want to thank those who came to help us. If there are any inaccuracies, please know I’m just a middle-aged woman in throes of perimenopause recovering from an injured back and fractured hip doing her very best. And I wasn’t that good of a journalist to begin with.**
Sitting in the living room of the house that has sheltered four generations of my family, there is a stillness in the air. The sort of peace that is only found in the country. It’s something I miss so badly living in the city. And when I tell people where I’m from I have to explain how a rural county works: our mailing address is nearest town (Meadville), but the majority of the county residents live miles away in little, tight-knit communities with names like Scott Hollow, Little Springs and McCall Creek. Mine is Berrytown.
I spent my entire childhood in Berrytown running amok, playing with my cousins and doing all the things country kids do: fishing and swimming in the creek, climbing trees and playing baseball with pine cones and sticks. In many ways it was idyllic. I had no curfew, really, just get home for supper and don’t get into any trouble bad enough for someone to call Mama.
The first five years of my life, I hung out with my World War II veteran grandfather and my vivacious great grandmother. Pawpaw and I would go all over the family land messing with his cows and anything else farm related. At least once a week we’d drive into town and he’d hand me $5 – a ridiculous sum back in 1985 — to spend on anything I wanted in the dollar store. My Nene taught me how to sew, crochet and bake.
The older I get, the stronger the urge grows to tighten my death grip on my roots. I want my daughter to know the freedom and wildness that bubbles up within me like the many natural springs that dot this land. I want her to remember the love and happiness of her grandparents’ home and experience the kind of sacred bond cousins make while barefoot in the yard, while up to harmless sorts of no good.
Living in a big city wears on you. Despite my love for Target drive-up services and DoorDashing food at 1 a.m., you get tired of the sirens, traffic and lack of elbow room, so to speak. Everyone’s rushing, staring at screens or filming stuff for social media. Coming here feels like such a reprieve from that.
But tonight, in the living room that’s held my family and memories for more than 80 years, that quietness is being pierced by the artificial rattle radiating from a generator on the porch. And, instead of gazing up at the stars from a ride on the Mule (ATV, not animal), my father is watching them twinkle through the holes in the ceiling above his bed.
This is such a different scene than we had four days ago. We had a wonderful family Christmas. Maybe even the best of all our many family Christmases. That’s why my baby sister Rikki and her family were still here with Cody and me. (Mark was in Vegas for the bowl game and missed all the action.) Our oldest three kids were all born six months (Tad, wait six months, Cody, wait six months, Grace) apart. We jokingly refer to them “the triplets” and they absolutely love being feral together.
And that’s what they were doing when my brother-in-law Joey began screaming.
We knew we were under a tornado watch and/or warnings all day. Alerts on our phones had been going off all day, a staggered symphony urging people to seek safety. But this time there was nothing. No vibrating warnings. No sharp buzzes. Luckily, Joey was monitoring the actual Doppler and saw something moving fast toward us.
“It’s on top of us! Get the kids into the tub!” Rikki screamed, turning to help Daddy and Mama.
Because I’m still recovering (a story for another day), aside from yelling at children and dogs, I provide very little help. I’m slow going and easily off balance. What happened next can only be described as a miracle. My brother-in-law, instinctively rushing toward his kids, summoned Herculean strength to push me through the threshold of the bathroom and toss me atop the four terrified, squished children in the tub.
It was in that instance my ears “popped,” a smell of wet, churned earth permeated the air and light debris hit the back of my head. For a sliver of a second, weightlessness took over. I realize this sounds unbelievable, but it was as if reality was suspended, and we were in a place between the here and now and somewhere else.
And not Kansas.
Meanwhile, in the living room, Mama was determined to shut the front door. In a tornado. By herself. If you know this woman, you’ll agree nothing has ever been more on brand. She told that tornado, “We don’t want the likes of you in this fine establishment. Sorry, weather, but we aren’t taking on company at the moment.”
Mama was pulling about 3 Gs when she shut that door.
A few feet away Rikki was attempting to navigate Daddy and his oxygen into the centermost point of the house. Her efforts were for naught, as he proclaimed like a brave but mortally wounded soldier: “Just leave me!” And threw himself into his power-lift recliner and held on. Mama took her seat beside him, and they watched outside the living room window as the gray, swirling mass and horizontal sharp rain ascended upon them.
It was then that everything went dark, and the sound of a jet engine igniting rolled over us. I held onto the kids and screamed for them to not let go. The house began to creak and moan and the wood began splintering. There were loud snaps that we later realized were trees being twisted off with the ease of breaking a pencil. Then the crash of our ancient magnolia tree exploding and an giant oak being split and uprooted, then deposited like pick up sticks on the south end of the house – just feet from our heads.
In that moment, I was sure the house would completely disintegrate. But it held together enough to protect us, and I have never been more grateful for the hand-sewn logs and craftsmanship that went into building this house.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I checked the kids for injuries. They were in shock, trembling and terrified, but alive and well.
We had been the lucky ones.
The next thing I remember is opening the now warped door and stepping onto the concrete porch. I’ve known this place for 44 years, but I didn’t recognize it. I was stunned and my ears were ringing. I pressed my eyes tightly shut, took three deep breaths and forced myself to be somewhat okay.
Mama had been the first to realize the mobile home across the road that a sweet, young couple (Sernity and D.J.) had just purchased was gone. The 135 mile-per-hour winds had flipped the trailer upside down and pierced it with the shanks created from pines twisted off by the tornado. The hill below, which had been covered with rows of strong trees, was now bare except for the gnarled stumps where the tall, young, sturdy pines had once stood.
I was still trying to process what I was seeing when Joey yelled my name.
“Stay on the porch! The power lines are down!” he yelled as he dialed 911.
I want to be very respectful here of our neighbor’s trauma. They are private and deserve to grieve and process in their own timeframe. But I also want to praise the real heroes in this disaster.
Right now, I’m only going to say that Rikki, a superhuman nurse, crawled through a window of the upside down home to render emergency aid. She and my mama crossed a road with limbs and fallen power lines, an extremely muddy trench, slipping and sliding to check on their neighbors. These are two of the strongest women I know.
After I snapped out of it, I realized Mama was yelling for Joey to call for an ambulance. Joey began dialing and yelled for me to get help from our neighbors a mile or so away. Before I finished my text, they had materialized. Within 15 minutes of calling 911, first responders were as close as they could be with the ambulance.
With the immediate needs met, I took a beat to try and process the damage that surrounded me. The magnolia tree that stood wide and tall, whose branches I’d climbed and fallen out of and swung from for hours, split into three giant pieces falling across the yard and house. The ancient oak was uprooted and mangled. It was as if a jungle had just sprung up all around the house and cars. Outbuildings were destroyed.
A little farther down the road, the church where I was baptized, my parents were married and generations of our family are buried, was completely leveled. To demonstrate the storm’s power: A cashed check from O’Zion Baptist Church’s records landed in a yard in Brandon, Mississippi, over an hour away. Another made out to Rev. Sherrell Lofton from was found 21 miles away.
In the early 70s, a group of congregants, including my deacon grandfather, came together, each with their own unique skills and talents, to construct a modern building. Just days after the flooring was installed my parents were the first couple married in the new church. Rev. Lofton performed the ceremony.
With the same care, my grandfather and his father, a master carpenter, had built a house to raise his family. Before he passed away in 1996, he told us they added braces between each 2-by-4 board they used to frame the house. Eighty years later the home he built protected us and the great-grandchildren he never met but would have loved.
Unfortunately, most of the northern third of the house was either destroyed or severely damaged. That part of the house suffered the most visible damage. The internal damage is more severe. It seems the house was lifted or was pushed and moved about four inches on the block and beam foundation. Floors have shifted and the roof has pulled apart in places. I’m incredibly sad that this place, which is more than wood and nails to me, is fading away.
The loss is settling in.
It rolls over me slowly like a fog rolling in over the ocean. We are cleaning and clearing and unburying what we can. There is much work to do and it will require money to do it, if it even can be done. If not, it’s time to do what this beautiful community does after every tragedy—bond together, lift each other up and come together to rebuild.
Tornado Relief for the Berrytown Community 