Alabama alumnus Michael Vine wrote this in the aftermath of the April 27th tornado. It is republished here with permission.
It’s been one week and 5 hours since the tornado came through my home and destroyed it. For most of that time, I’ve felt that I needed to put my emotions and thoughts down somewhere, just to get them all out. Now, I have finally given myself that opportunity and I don’t have a clue where to begin.
A tornado touched down shortly after 5 PM last Wednesday night and changed this town – and my life – forever.
For a few hours Wednesday night I sat in the basement of Rowand Johnson Hall on campus, because the library had closed. I felt the library was the safest place to go because it had an underground basement, but so does RoJo, so it was the next best option. A few more tornado threats missed Tuscaloosa (and thank goodness), and then I went to a shelter that had been set up to help victims of the storm. I don’t remember exactly when I got there. I know that I got home around 3/3:30 AM and went to sleep in my dorm – which had no power. I didn’t know then the scope of the damage.
Over the next week, we’ve all heard about the full extent of the damage through Twitter, TV, internet, and radio. The numbers have fluctuated – at one point there were 46 dead in Tuscaloosa, although even now the real count stands at 41 – but the general idea has remained the same. The 27th of April in 2011 is a day that will be in Alabama history books for a long, long time. President Obama visited (he was in Tuscaloosa when he ordered the hit on Osama bin Laden that has ironically now stolen the focus of the national media, when it should still be squarely in Alabama) and said he had never seen anything like it. Neither have I.
Classes were cancelled first, then exams. In about 20 minutes, one storm system made me a junior. I would’ve been studying all this week. I would give anything to take my final exams instead of this mess. Not volunteering was never an option. Today was the 7th straight day out of 7 since the storm that I’ve done something to help out, and even if some days were less productive than others it’s a streak I’m very proud of and one I plan to continue until my job requires that I leave town on Monday.
The last week has been unorganized, difficult, painful, tedious, heartwrenching, and all in all one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. I am exhausted. I am sore. I am sunburned. I am horrified at the things that I’ve seen. And yet, it has also been so rewarding. I never realized a simple “Thank you” would mean so much to me. A woman bought myself and 7 others lunch at Chick-fil-a simply because she knew we were volunteers, and when I introduced myself and asked her name, she replied “It doesn’t matter” and was gone before we even got our drinks. Most importantly though – at the end of the day, I feel like I’ve done what I was supposed to do that day. I have no regrets. And it’s a feeling that I’m not used to.
The damage is unfathomably widespread. I’ve worked in 8 completely different communities in 7 days. All devastated. And the only thing that I can think of that hurts more than the sights I drive by or walk by every day are the stories that I hear.
– An 80 year old woman who needed a walker for every step she took was in her home. She is missing. Her walker was found 50 feet high in a tree 100 yards from her house.
– A couple was together in their home and held each other in the bathroom when the storm hit. Both were picked up and thrown. The boyfriend lived. The girlfriend did not.
– A family of 5 huddled together with the parents surrounding their three small boys. The oldest, an 8 year old, was sucked up by the storm from his parents grasp, only to walk through the front door 5 minutes later saying “Daddy, I went up in the air.”
– A woman’s house was destroyed by a 60 foot oak tree during the storm – about a week after she lost her husband and her father in the same week.
Yesterday I hit bottom. The day was full of rain, I didn’t accomplish much as a volunteer, and I was worried about the effects of the rain on so many roof-less homes. Doesn’t sound like a lot? Spend that kind of day looking at hundreds and thousands of lives that have been turned upside down. And yet at the end of the completely overcast day, the skies cleared just in time for a magnificent sunset – the 6th in as many days since the storm. Tonight’s sunset made 7. This reminds me that, in spite of everything that has happened, Tuscaloosa is beautiful. It remains beautiful though there is a 6 mile long stretch of debris running through its heart, and it will always remain beautiful. Not only because of the landscape, but because of the people.
Tonight I happened to see the moon on the way back from dinner through one of the affected areas. 8 days ago I wouldn’t have been able to see it based on where it was and where I was – It was too low and there would have been many trees and homes in my way. Tonight, I saw it easily. It was a sliver. The smallest of slivers, really – yesterday was a new moon. That’s how I see this situation in Tuscaloosa. We are going through a terrible terrible tragedy and the vast majority of the information we’re getting is telling us to be mournful and depressed. But there is a light. It’s a sliver, and it’s not very big, and it’s not all that bright – but it’s there, and when you compare it to the darkness around it, the sliver of hope starts to look a little brighter. And every day it is going to get a little bigger, and just like the moon tonight – its darkest day has passed. Our darkest day has passed in Tuscaloosa. We are going to come back from this. I am proud to call Tuscaloosa my home, and I only hope I can do as much for this town in the next two years as it did for me in the last two.
Roll tide.
