generalspeaking

Thursday, March 07, 2019

Nature's Tantrums

Residents and family members sift through the debris of their homes near Lee County Road 38 in Beauregard, Alabama, on March 4, 2019, a day after tornadoes ravaged the area. Julie Bennett / AP

"We've got piles of rubble that we are searching just to make sure [we've found everyone]."
"We don't think we'll find nobody there, but we don't want to leave any stone unturned."
"She [mother of a six-year-old] just said her child was swept from the father's arms. A mother's love for her child. How do you tell a mom that she can't go look for her child? She went and tried to find her child, like everybody else."
Opelika Fire Chief Byron Prather, Jr., Alabama

"When I got up that hill, I see no houses. Everything was gone. I just couldn't believe it. It looked like someone took a chainsaw and went, 'swoop.'"
"Just the image [of her dead mother] — I will never get out of my head. They really didn’t want me to see the picture, but I had to identify the body."
"I ain't getting through it good at all."
"I just got so many questions, but you know, you don’t question the Lord. Just why, why, you know, why? Why this had to happen like this? To everybody that you know and love? At one time? Why?"
"When I break down, I'm going to break down. I might need two or three days to myself."

"I had no idea I was seeing my mama for the last time, and I would have so many things to tell her."

"Tell somebody you love them every day. You might not mean it, but just tell them, because you don't know — you might not even come back."
Cora Jones, 52, Beauregard, Alabama, who lost ten family members

An American flag flies over a damaged home in Beauregard, Alabama, following the passage of the March 3, 2019, tornado. (Photo: Trevor Hughes, Trevor Hughes-USA TODAY NETWORK)

Government teams surveying the storm damage that hit Beauregard, Alabama, close to the Georgia border on March 3, confirmed that at minimum 18 tornadoes struck Alabama, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Two of those deadly wind tunnels of immense destructive force hit Beauregard. And caused 23 deaths. Among them a six-year-old child and an 89-year-old. The coroner's report has released their names; apart from the six-year-old, another aged ten, visiting the home of a friend when the twisters struck ground level.

"Just keep those families in your prayers", said Lee County Coroner Bill Harris, two days following the worst tornado to strike the U.S. in six years. The rural community of Beauregard was the worst hit. The devastated area was loud with the sound of heavy machinery and chainsaws in the aftermath of the tornadoes. The good news was that the list of missing had been reduced from dozens to seven or eight, according to Sheriff Jay Jones.

The shattered pieces of a home blown off its foundation (lower right) lie scattered among downed trees on March 4, 2019, the day after a tornado struck Beauregard, Alabama. David Goldman / AP

The tragedy of a father who held his son, 6-year-old Armando Hernandez Jr., resonates with all the town's residents. The boy was torn from his father's grasp by the ferocious winds, lost forever. His distraught mother desperately attempted to enter the zone of the disaster in a vain effort to find her child, a first-grader who had two days before delighted his parents, singing in a musical produced by his class.

The tornado was graded as an EP4, its winds estimated at 274 km/hr, enabling it to chew a path of misery and disaster as it destroyed everything in its path up to 1.4 kilometres wide for close to 43 kilometres through Alabama. Ninety people suffered injuries and were hospitalized, according to authorities; most have since been released. Their physical condition will improve but the psychological damage experienced by those who suffered through the onslaught will take much longer.

As for those who lost members of their family, including Cora Jones who lost her father, mother and eight other family members, there will be no recovery from the shock and the loss; a permanent trauma colouring the rest of their lives with unforgettable anguish.