Posts tagged alabama

I certainly hope that everyone remembers April 27th, 2011.  This day I have come to call “Day of the Deadly Twisters”.  I know, by any stretch of the imagination, that I am not the only EF-5 tornado survivor in the world, United States, or even in the North Alabama region.  Mine isn’t a unique story with a twist (no pun intended), or any other literary cliffhangers.  However, it isn’t everyday that your home, sense of security, or your safe haven is ripped from you in a matter of seconds.  My family and myself are lucky, luckier than most you could say.  Since that fateful day in April, we have not been homeless, hungry, or abandoned.  We have had a roof over our heads, in not just one place, but two.  Our “survival mode” is still engaged, and most likely will be until the day we move back into our home that is in process of being rebuilt from the ground up.  I say we are lucky; lucky to be alive.  Someone asked me once, why I am rebuilding my home in the same place.  That is the easiest question to answer, no where else is home.  In the Carter’s Gin community, where I lived, and will live again showed me the meaning of community.  Not only were we fed by our neighbors, our neighbors actually came and assisted in the salvage process.  Neighbors helped our friends and family put our salvaged items boxes that were sorted in the front yard, strong guys come through the house asking if they could help move heavy stuff outside. Neighbors drove through the streets giving ice, and water, some even brought totes full of supplies that we may need.  Others drove by and told us to come to their houses to get food they were cooking on grills.  Though the last few months have been a struggle, still having to balance work, health, family, and manage the rebuilding of a home is not easy.  So many times I have been asked, “How do you keep yourself together?”.  Here is the answer to that statement; I don’t.  I have my moments, I fight and I fight really hard, and keep telling myself that it will all be over soon, everything will get back to normal.  That is why I keep fighting, because I know it is the truth.  There is one major thing that I have noticed, everyone always asks the same questions, in the same order.  Somehow in every conversation I have with someone new, it is always asked in some manner, “How were you affected by the storms in April?”  I have come to grips with reality and I don’t try to sugar coat anything, and I state, sometimes quite matter of factly “My home was destroyed.”  The reaction is always the same, jaws drop to the floor.  Sometimes, I am unsure if it was what I said or how I said it.  The next question is always the same, “Were you at home?” Yes, we were at home with the tornado come through our neighborhood.  The last question is always the same, “Is everyone alright?”  Yes, everyone is alright, no injuries at all.  Again, I state, we were lucky.  Enough time has passed that I am able to talk about the majority of the experience without my eyes filling up with tears.  I was interviewed by WHNT about the exprience while doing some cleanup, and I promised myself I was not going to be one of those people that you hear on the news after a tornado talking about how it sounds like a frieght train with the most southern accent they could muster.  So WHNT played my interview, and I kept the promise to myself.  For the record, when you are inside your home when it is being destroyed by a tornado the only thing you are thinking, is not how loud it is, but if you are going to walk away.  People I know, and people that haven’t seen me in a while, always tell me that they saw me on the news, and ask how the rebuild is coming, I very politely respond, most of the time I just state, “not fast enough”.