“This is for all the Strong Ladies who have made it through so much in life. I am
strong because I know my weaknesses. I am compassionate because I have known
suffering. I am alive because I am a Fighter. I am wise because I have been
Foolish. I can laugh because I have known sadness.” Somebody’s status on
facebook.
I confess to being highly lacking with writing and communicating with others.. I
get so involved in whatever I am doing; I sometimes close out the rest of the
world. Sorry ’bout that. Checked email in too big of a hurry this morning.
Trying to get my work done so I can go back to reading, “The Help”.
Keeping up with my writer’s group and the prayers we share suffers for it, too. Each lady in our group is a dear old friend to me. I talk to them more than anyone else beside Jesus and I have for
years. They have prayed me through so many mountians. Amazingly, we have never seen each other but we have been through so much together. Mission trips, family issues, missionaries, publishing, denials,
sickness, sorrow, tragedy…they have always been there for me. We laugh about
one day seeing one another I don’t know what I would do with them. I just have
been focusing so much of my attention to work here and my little world.
I never could have imagined in my wildest dreams what it feels like to be a
victim of a horrible destructive F5 tornado’ I could not have imagined because
it is an unspeakable nightmare of epic proportions in the life of the affected.
I did not know until it happened to me.
On April 27th, 2011 the weather forecasters correctly
predicted tornados unlike anything we have ever seen in Alabama. The day
progressively got worse and the skies turned “tornado watch pink” with an
orange glow. The eerie looking still sky
is ever a warning in this part of the world. Its presence is known always preceding
tornados. April 27th was no different.
Previously scheduled to be in Lawrence County for a divorce hearing I tried to
ignore the warnings thinking “surely the legal system in Lawrence County is
fully versed on bad weather, more so than I am”. In the back of my mind I was
thinking, “What is wrong with these idiots?”
With the forecasts like they were I could not
believe Lawrence County was actually going to pull people into harm’s way.
But, in harm’s way we were. My attorney and I and a court room full of folks watched
as the skies got darker and darker and the trees began to blow over sideways.
It was raining sideways too.
Right in the middle of the storm the presiding judge decided to evacuate the court
room in the old, old, old court house. Did I mention the court house in
Lawrence County is old and has been condemned but continues to be in use for
all the county’s business?
There we were me and my lawyer, Keith and his, a friend of mine from Haleyville
and a girl who went to school with us. She was there also getting a divorce.
Even without the storm and a possibility of tornados, the air was tight and the
pressure was immense. I hate court rooms. Hate ’em.
Upon the order to seek shelter everyone filed out of the court room and walked
down the stairs, 2 flights, into the nasty damp basement. I do not like that
basement! There are damp musty offices and a court room down there, the bathrooms
and the vending machines also along one wall. Long benches line the hallway for
people to sit in misery while they wait on the law to determine the direction
of their lives. I hate that, too.
The judge called us back into the court room and dismissed us. We all drove
home during a tornado warning. Beth and I made it back to Haleyville, picked up
the kids and came over here to my house. By that time the TV and radio, text
messages indicated a tornado coming straight for Haleyville. We got the dogs,
the kids, and the radio. We quickly got to the basement into the stoker room
for shelter.
The rain stopped, the wind stopped and the continuous thunder stopped. But, we
knew it was not over and the tornado had touched down, radio reported a direct
hit on highway 197 where Beth’s house is.
Caitlyn and I stayed here and Beth and Cade went to their house. All was well
there but not south Haleyville, Cummings Subdivision, people we knew, huge
trees down, power off, the list went on and on. Frantic calls were coming in
over the scanner and we could hear it on the radio. The DJ was obviously
incredibly flustered and panicked. He reported as the calls came in, …..Fontaine
Industries, Winston Furniture, Macedonia Road…. The DJ on the radio was
frantically listening to the police scanner and telling us what they were
saying and all I could do was pray.
Hackleburg and Phil Campbell, neighboring small towns, old rural Alabama towns,
to the north were hit and hit bad. All power was off and we could not drink our
water without boiling it. We struggled along not knowing what steps to take
next. We got a generator to keep the frozen food from thawing. We had to cook
on a grill. We were surviving. Taking cold showers because we thought the hot
water was off too.
I had a feeling the Red Cross would call in all nurses so I prepared to go when
they did. Armed with my RN license I joined the call for nurses at the Neighborhood
Facilities Building. The next eighteen hours are a blur. I saw too much there.
A young man 26 years old presented as my first patient there. Every surface, his
head, hair, all over he was lacerated and bleeding. That smell was ever present
and changing the dressings was imperative. Multiple dressings and supplies were
needed. The Red Cross had no supplies. I promise you, on my education as an RN,
I tell you the person in charge was not a nurse, I don’t think.
She handed me the “supply bag” and in it I found outdated gauze
sponges, no normal saline and not much tape. Nothing to make pressure dressings
out of. Nothing to give the patient for pain or fever. I gathered my thoughts
and politely ask the nice Red Cross lady if this indeed was the only supplies
she had. I asked if she didn’t have a central supply. I always thought with all
the donations they get they surely have a little first responder trailer. I
thought wrong. She was so flustered about everything.
She said she did not have any other supplies. Then
she, the Red Cross Coordinator, asked me if I could make a list of everything
we need. I said, “yeah I can but you will have to hold pressure right
here.” She looked at me like I was crazy. I held pressure and changed dressings. Geeze!
So, while holding pressure and cleaning the worst wound the best I could with what
I had, she took down my list. It is a wonder my brain did not explode.
I suppose I looked awfully stunned. There were a lot of people around.
Volunteers, firefighters, patients, citizens, pain, sadness and shock some of
them I knew and some of them were obviously from ground zero of the tornado.
Everyone worked as hard as they possibly could.
My patient was really in pain and deep shock. I kept talking to him and he
would answer me. The stethoscope I was provided with only had one earplug and
one bell. As I tried to get an accurate BP He told me about all he had seen and
felt when the tornado hit. He told me about seeing people hanging in the trees.
He had been in a mobile home in Hackleburg. The last thing he remembers is
getting into the bathtub and his uncle lying on top of him. When it hit, he
felt his uncle’s weight release and he never saw him again.
The young man, found by Alabama State Troopers in a field, his clothes shredded
a bloody mess. They took him straight away to Lakeland Community Hospital in
Haleyville.
The ER at Haleyville swarmed all hands on deck. All hospital employees still
standing, called in to work the ER. They young man recounted the time he spent
in the ER. “They were sewing us up in the hall. The doctor stitched me up
in the hall. I had X-rays and an MRI. He said I had fractured ribs and a
collapsed lung.”
The young man brought from the hospital to the Red Cross. I was shocked to find
out how bad he really was. Praying because I knew how bad he could get in a
hurry. Our only option was to call back the EMTs if he got worse and needed
medicine.
He had a prescription for antibiotics and lorcet in his pocket. How stupid is that?
Where were we supposed to get that RX
filled? No Electricity! duh!
Another RN came in to the Facilities building. Man! was I glad to see her.
She is a good nurse and I previously know her. I discussed the case with her
and she agreed the worst wounds had to be redressed and the blood cleaned up. I
cleaned with sterile eye drops. No normal saline.
The fire department did a great job about getting the supplies back to us
quickly. The young man was obviously in distress because of the smell he said.
If you have ever smelled a tornado and its aftermath you know what I am talking
about. A tornado has an awful; smell. And everything it touched has that same
smell, even people.
Several of us were helping and we washed, cleaned and prayed.
We tried to keep him talking and little by little he sipped
more on his Mountain Dew. The more he drank the better he felt but he was still
crying, shivering and feverous.
We were about to cry too when a local pastor came in and immediately saw us.
He walked straight to us, knelt and began to pray. He prayed, we all
did and he stayed and comforted the young man while we finished our task. When
we finished, the pastor disappeared as fast as he had appeared. I love that.
Stealth pastoring. :)
We obtained Tylenol for our patient from my purse, and some Advil, too. I gave
him both. We also gave him a Tagamet. Oh, and the Red Cross could not provide
me with any policies and procedures. It was a huge emergency disaster response.
Replacing the dressings seemed to increase his comfort, the patient was eating some
peanut butter crackers sitting in a hard metal seat with his cut up, wounded
legs and feet resting, propped up on another metal chair. I was about to move
him to another position and place when another young man came in. It was our
patient’s cousin and they were so glad to see each other. Hugging and crying
each other and us, no one could hold back the tears. We escorted them to the
car with his things and medical instructions. He was on his way home with his
family who had been looking everywhere for him. The hospital told them where he
was.
What a day! I think I must have collapsed when I got home.
The next day, still without power and water, I got up to get ready to go back
to the Red Cross or wherever I needed to go. I was slow getting around and late
getting up. I was waiting on someone to call when the phone rang and it was
Keith. He said, “I know I am not supposed to call but I think you need to
know the cabin was destroyed by the tornado.” I think that may have been
the last thing I really heard.
I am thinking if I write this I will be able
to put it in the back recesses of my mind. I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking
of some of the things I lost. Wonderful heirloom things that really cannot ever
be replaced, my home I built, even though I was ready to give it to Keith, I
wasn’t ready to lose it, the land and all my belongings, but I did.
Diana and Beth snuck over to Lawrence County to make sure he wasn’t lying. They
don’t much trust him. They found he told the truth. Keith said I could not come
until the next day because they had to clear the road to even get to the house.
There were also gas leaks that had to be stopped.
Diana brought me back some pictures and torn
up journal. I almost puked. My body shook and I could not quit shaking. Crying
I could not even make a noise but my heart broke. Physically, I felt it
breaking even more than it already was. I will never be the same.
Among a million things the violent tornado took all of my life journals from
the 70s-until now. All my writing and notebooks of potential projects, writing
I had done for years. 200 copies of my book, those are just lost. I can’t
describe how I feel about that. I don’t even know if I can try to explain it.
My life, my prayers, my heart for all those years has been documented. I write
better than I talk, so I wrote. For years. All gone, scattered, and taken by
the violent wind. Gone with the Wind is my music library of 45 years gone just
gone. Oh how that breaks my heart. All of the Reader’s Digest Song Books Momma
gave me over the years. I had every music book Readers Digest has ever
published.
Two of the Reader’s Digest Books survived, a little worse for the wear and
dirty, they survived. The Christmas Book which has all my favorites in it and
The Family Songbook of Faith and Joy. Those two remain after everything else is
gone. Just gone.
I am so alone. Tragedy tends to isolate and I have had one tragedy after
another. I don’t know how I am existing. I miss my parents so much it hurts too
much. I live here and I try but I have to say I fail in so many ways. I really
just have a hard time talking, laughing or even smiling most days. No one to
smile at or for, except Jesus, Pearl, Radar and Hoss. Now, through all of this
He has shown me so much. The Way, the Truth and the Life. So undeserving I
praise Him as I pray that this too will pass. And somehow I can learn to live
without thinking about what the next disaster or tragedy will be.
I don’t know how long it takes someone to get over losing their parents unexpectedly
and too fast, grieving and leaving, living in Haleyville, friends falling away,
money is tightening, things needed to be gone through, cleaned up and sold,
kept or donated. The basement is full of things that seemed to have survived
the tornado.
There were so many people with boots on the ground helping us go through the
debris. Oh, it was amazing. I could not have asked for more.
The workers knew I wanted to retrieve writings, music, and pictures. So they
found stuff and put it in Contractor Bags. We loaded those and other stuff in
the trucks, cars, vans, etc and brought it back to Haleyville. Very few of
pieces of my journals and writing survived.
On Sunday I was in some intense pain in my left side. Oh, my goodness it hurt
so badly. I hurt worse than after my wreck when I had a collapsed lung. I
thought I pulled a muscle going through all of the debris but it kept getting
worse and worse until by Wednesday I was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis
and I think a bad case of exacerbation of Post traumatic stress disorder.
Ever since my wreck when something tragic or awful happened I would have to go
to the ER. I have been in Moulton Hospital and now Haleyville for illnesses
caused by an exacerbation of PTSD brought on by immense stress. Nothing I can
do about it except try not to implode. PSTD manifest in physical symptoms
eventually breaking down the physical impairment that is the weakest.
I
have never been admitted to the hospital without Keith and Momma and Daddy. I
have never felt pain like spending the night in the hospital alone hurt. It is
something I don’t think I will ever get used to.
So, now I find myself praying a lot. Reading, watching
TV or movies, I play the piano, I work in the house and trying to dig out
things I want to sell. I find something interesting and have to stop, research
and find out what it is worth. I clean it up and set a price and pray someone
will purchase it..
I so need to sell a lot of things. I have given so much away and mostly people
still just want me to give. I have lost so much, giving gets to be more
difficult. I don’t like it but it is what it is.
I am trusting, waiting, praying, hoping,
posting on E-bay, posting on my created facebook page and about to embark upon
other markets. When I sale enough to get on my feet, I am going to get business
cards and flyers. I guess I can put on the business card, ^i^ Angels in the
Attic ^i^ 2316 10th Avenue Haleyville, Alabama 35565 205-486-3551 205-269-8660
by appointment. Find me on facebook!!
Well, I just thought about what all I need to be doing besides writing. Thanks
for sparking it and for reading this far.
The truth is not always pretty but it is the truth.
Gracenotes from Pebble East 