Nearly Blown Away, Part 2

I woke up around 6:00 a.m. Monday morning.  The sun was up and it was so bright outside, and my body just wouldn’t let me sleep.  I turned on the local talk radio and listened, still in shock of what had happened the evening before.  I heard news of rain headed our way, so I went outside to nail a contractor bag to the outside of the bathroom window to keep the rain from getting in. 

As much as Tina and I wanted to go out and volunteer, forces conspired against us, and probably for good reason.  Around 7:30 a.m. or so, word came down on the radio that there was a severe storm headed our way, so we decided to wait until the storm had passed.  The storm came with wind, lightning, and rain. And rain.  And rain.  And rain.  It ended up storming and literally dumping buckets of rain the entire day.  My heart dropped as I thought of the emergency responders and all of those who were out looking for people in that miserable, dangerous weather.  Around 9:00, Tina heard from her stepmom, who was running us down a generator and several cases of water since we were still under the boil order.  She was supposed to arrive at 11:00, but we didn’t see her until 12:00.  After she came and went, we noticed that Tina had a flat tire on her car, so we put the spare on and drove the car out to Sears to get it replaced and to get a gas can for the generator.  The streets were choked with people trying to come out and look at the damage, so it took us a long time to get there.  It was on this trip that we caught our first glimpse of the damage.

As we crawled down 15th Street, we reached Parr Hill park.  Looking south was something that was just indescribable.  I was driving, so I didn’t have time for any long, lingering looks.  All I can remember seeing was jagged edges everywhere. Crumpled steel and splintered support beams.  Tina started crying, just overwhelmed with the thought of the people who lived in that area and just where they would go.

After fixing the tire and getting a gas can for the generator, the woman that TIna watches kids for invited us over there for dinner and to stay the night.  Since we still didn’t have any power or gas, we accepted their offer and went out there. I was still just so shell-shocked and numb, and felt incredibly guilty that a whole day had passed, and we hadn’t done anything to help people out.  It took a long time for me to get to sleep that night, but I was grateful that I wasn’t able to hear the wail of the emergency vehicles rocketing through town.

On Tuesday, the woman had to go to work and Tina needed to watch the kids.  Since we still didn’t have any power at home, I had her stay there while I went into town to run the generator and try to clean up the yard.  It was so hot and muggy as I set to work.  As I started on the yard, I was so afraid of what I might find around the house.  When you see the wreckage of a tornado, you see all of the twisted metal and broken wood and whatever else it picked up and carried away.  These are things that are hard.  Soft tissue, like what you and I are made of, surely wouldn’t stand a chance in a mix like that.  As bad and as fragile as I was feeling at that moment, I couldn’t imagine what would happen if I had found a hand, or an eye, or part of a jaw or something like that.  Luckily, I was spared that and managed to make good progress on the back yard before heading back out to get Tina. 

We stayed for dinner again and headed home with the promise of another intense storm with the possibility of tornadoes.  We had power when we got back, so we were able to squeeze in a load of laundry.  Around 9:00, the storm was moving into the area, and my anxiety rose to where I was pacing the house.  We made preparations to run for shelter if needed, and at 9:30 when the sirens sounded, I pretty much flipped my shit.  It was all I could do to pull my mind together, along with our important documents, water, and lights.  When we got to shelter, my heart was racing and I just couldn’t calm down.  I’m sure someone would have told me at that point that I had post-traumatic stress disorder, and I would have told them "no shit." Luckily, the storms went north, and we returned home late that night.

By Wednesday, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.  Up until this point, I had been resisting going out and seeing the damage, because I absolutely did not want to know how close I came to meeting my end.  I felt like such a coward, especially since I had heard so many miracle stories and stories of how people who had lost everything had really been stepping up and helping out.  And yet here I sat, trembling and afraid to even acknowledge the damage that I knew started just two blocks away.  We had power back at work, so I got up and went in for a while.  Finally, I told myself that enough was enough, and that if I were to start healing and start being useful again, I would have to get out and look at the damage.

I came home from work around 2:00, and Tina and I took a walk down Main Street past 20th. Along with the bumper to bumper traffic, there was just piles and piles and piles of debris everywhere.  We made it down to about 24th street and just stopped and held each other and cried.  We then walked east on 24th through the neighborhoods, just silent at all of the devastation and all of the broken houses.  As we reached 24th and Grand, we looked out across at the high school and the Franklin Tech building which were just piles of rubble.  Walking back up Grand towards 20th, we eventually stopped at 21st and Grand and looked out past the high school and realized that we could see all the way to Rangeline, which was about two miles away. After we returned home, we got in the car and drove down to check on someone.  This person lived in a house that was maybe 8 or 10 blocks to the east of us, and her house was demolished.  Again, that weighed hard on me, knowing that I had come that close to losing everything.  At the end of the day, I felt a little better for having reconciled some of that damage, but I was still far from feeling better.

I don’t remember much of what happened on Thursday that week, but I do know that I finally forced myself to go all the way down Main on Friday to pick up some prescriptions for Tina.  Since the town was literally cut in half, it was only a matter of time before I had to start going to the other side to run errands.  It was just heartbreaking to see all of that damage in just that small part of town.  And again, with the traffic and gawkers, it’s hard to get through quickly.  I had to work on Friday night, but before I did, I went to help a friend search for her wedding ring in the rubble of her house.  It felt good to help, even if it was just for a little while.  On Friday night, I learned that one of my friends had been heading up a large part of the search and rescue and recovery effort and had been on the ground almost continuously since Sunday night.

On Saturday, after a funeral for the ex-wife of a friend who had died in the tornado, I noticed that the police had started letting people drive down Rangeline and that traffic was flo

wing at a quicker pace than I had seen it all week.  So, I forced myself to go, trying to get through it and get over it.  Once again, as I neared the damage, the traffic slowed down and people stopped to gawk.  I was in tears the whole time, my heart breaking at the sight. There were mangled cars everywhere, commercial buildings that were entirely blown out.  I turned up 20th street to head for home and drove straight up the damage path and was just overwhelmed again by how close I had come and how blessed I was to actually be alive.

Finally, we hit the week mark on Sunday.  Since my birthday was the week after, I had planned to get together with my family and do a picnic somewhere in town.  My parents picked me up after church and we left town and went to Pittsburg to meet up with my brother and sister.  As relieved as I was to see my family, to touch my family after this whole ordeal, I really tell the toll that this had taken on me.  After a few hours out of town, though, I felt like I could finally breathe again, for the first time in a week.

That Monday was the day where I finally felt the most human again.  Since it was Labor day, my cousin had the day off, some him and his wife and a couple of other people came up to volunteer to work.  We massed on a friend’s brother’s house and were joined by another group of people just in town looking to volunteer.  Together, we made quick work of that place and ended up driving around looking to help some random people.  We found one family and helped them out, then got a call to help some friends out and showed up there to help them.  At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but I finally felt great.

This has really taken a lot out of me to write, so I’m sorry if it kind of fell apart near the end.  For future installments, I’ll go further into the mark it’s left on me, what I’ve been struggling with, and also some of the miracle stories that I’ve heard from here.

Until next time, pray for me, because I am having a hard time coping with all of this.

Brian