Stories from the April 16, 1998 Tornado

It's been 10 years since we got really smacked with the tornado of 1998 in East Nashville. What a difference a decade makes! Here is our story of that event and the days that followed . . .

I was leaving that Thursday April 16 morning to go to a weekend Buddhist retreat in Florida, away for the first time on a fun trip since the kids were born. Sterling was 5 and Raven was 3 at the time, attending Jones Paideia and Hull-Jackson Montessori Magnet Schools, north of downtown. I remember carpooling with other kids to school that morning before I left, and listening to the tornado warning for the Bellevue area around 7:30 am that day. When that warning was over, we gave a sigh of relief, I finished packing for my trip and told Joe I wanted to go the airport a little early in case rainy weather pushed into the area again. Didn't really think it would be more tornadic weather, just thunder storms, and that is what the Southwest Airlines folks said when I got to the airport early - "Why don't you take the plane for Orlando that is boarding now, honey, there's a few more storms moving in again and that way you won't get delayed." So, I did.

Eventually got to my destination near the Everglades in Florida, a retreat center, didn't think much about watching the news, and there weren't many TVs around anyway. It was great gathering around the pool, meeting up with old friends I'd met at similar events in the past, lots of conversation and great weather; not thinking much about the rain in Nashville at that point.

Oddly, sometime around 3:30 pm Eastern time, despite the fact that I was feeling very relaxed at the pool and in the midst of good conversation with others, I decided to go to the sanctuary at the retreat center and chant for the protection of my family while I was gone, something that I often do when away. I chanted until about 5:00 pm Eastern. Later I learned that the tornados had ripped through our town during that same time period. Then went back into the retreat activities of the day and didn't try to call home that night.

With my absence from town, we had made arrangements for our kids to be picked up from school by our good friend, Ann Martin. Little did she know that she was crossing the path of one tornado when she went across town to pick them up, and crossed the path again when another tornado pushed through, after she had the kids in the car. Fortunately, she was headed to her house in Woodbine and not to East Nashville per previous arrangements. It took her hours to get home, and she had no idea what had happened on the East side of town. She was supposedly going to take the kids to Joe at Joe's Diner in East Nashville around 8:00 pm. A call from her son telling her that things were probably a mess in East Nashville nixed that plan.

In the meantime, Joe was at Joe's Diner at 1907 Eastland Avenue (now the home of the Rosepepper Cantina and Mexican Grill) with a his friend and customer Bruce Hawkins, shooting some pool and shooting the breeze (bad pun). Tornado warnings about "downtown, downtown, downtown" made them eventually realize that storms do move East and that if there was a tornado downtown, it was probably heading their way. They sort of jokingly discussed plans for where they were going to hide if the tornado came to East Nashville. They thought underneath the heavy slate pool tables might be a good solution. They kept playing pool but with an eye on the outside. When the trees starting bending over nearly in half and the front door blew open with a vengeance, Bruce ran instinctively to close the door, but Joe screamed for them to jump in the walk in cooler, NOW! Good thing for that last minute change of hiding place . . . .

Bruce prayed in the cooler that he would not see sky and daylight when they opened the door. However, he didn't get his wish. They came out of hiding to find the roof of Joe's Diner completely ripped off, two walls destroyed and debris everywhere, including debris packed underneath the pool tables which apparently had been picked up and slammed back down on top of the junk - 2 x 4's, metal, chairs, tables - they never would have survived under there had they gone with their original plan.

I had chosen to go to the spa at the retreat center that night rather than to watch the news. So, when I called home around 6:30 am on Friday to check on everyone before they left for school, I thought it a little odd that my home phone, my next door neighbor's home phone, the Joe's Diner phone, and our carpool family's phone were all out. Not good. I called my work phone and found I had gotten two voice mails Thursday afternoon related to the storm - one from my daughter's teacher at Hull-Jackson saying they were all OK, and another call from my friend, Wayne Deason, who knew that I had been planning to go to Florida but wasn't sure if I had actually left.

I called Wayne, who lived on Greenwood Avenue, and his phone was working. He told me that the two trees in front our house were down but thought they had missed the house. He had no idea what was going on over on Eastland Avenue. I asked him if I could call him back if I couldn't get hold of the friend who I hoped still had our kids.

Fortunately, I didn't have to search far. I found Ann at home, calmly caring for the kids. I asked her if she'd heard from Joe and she told me his story of survival and we chatted that there was damage. It was ten minutes into the conversation that she said the roof had come off the Diner! She didn't want me to feel like I had to leave the retreat weekend, but I knew I had better figure out how to get home, although I had no way of getting in touch with Joe. Tried my across the street neighbor, Jackie Biggers, whose phone was working, and she offered to try to get a cell phone to Joe. He'd been working non-stop at the Diner, starting in on debris clean-up as soon as the winds cleared. His survivor buddy, Bruce, hung in there with him all night and then some. After the conversation with Joe, it was definitely clear I needed to make a bee-line back to town. Got driven to the airport, walked right on an available flight and was back in Nashville within about 4 hours.

Took a cab from the airport and thought I'd direct the driver to take a "shortcut" through Edgefield. Bad mistake, but I did get a first hand tour of the damage to all of the homes, churches and other structures in the neighborhood. Half hour later, we made it to my house after weaving through downed trees and debris. Trees downed in our yard only clipped the gutter on the front of the house. I had to climb through trees to get in, otherwise, things were OK, including our cat and dog who somehow had not gotten hurt or lost.

Our restaurant Joe's Diner was another story! What a mess! We worked on general clean up of debris over the next few days, and took a few weeks to try to figure out what we wanted to do. Our great insurance agent Bill Wade had gotten Shaub Construction to mitigate damages as best they could. After giving it a little thought, Joe decided to go forward with the rebuild. Since Shaub Construction had worked with the building in the mitigation, they had a good idea what would need to be done to put it back together, and they easily and quickly put together a quote. Shaub did a great job, and we only had to haggle with the insurance company once. Amazingly, they never raised our insurance rates either. Ironically, a few months into the rebuild, a large truck with a steam roller on a flatbed was going down Eastland Avenue in front of the Diner. The chains holding the steam roller on board snapped and the roller slid off the truck straight towards Joe's Diner. Unfortunately for the Shaub construction foreman, his pickup truck was parked in its path. New truck for the Shaub guy out of that incident; we presume that if the truck hadn't been there, the handiwork they had just completed might have needed yet another do-over!

Four months later, Joe's Diner reopened and had another three year life until the building was leased to what has become now our beloved Rosepepper Cantina. We wish to thank the many friends and neighbors who helped with clean-up and supported us during that time. The Cajun/Zydeco Dance Group of Nashville, who were meeting monthly at the Diner at the time, were particularly generous as a crew that helped us on that Saturday. We feel we came out better for the ordeal in the end and hope that many others feel the same, although we know not everyone was as fortunate in their insurance settlements. Long live East Nashville. We have made improvements in the last 10 years in our neighborhood that probably otherwise would have taken decades to accomplish! Let's not forget the challenges we faced, the community we found in friends, neighbors and others from across the city and from out of state, and the blessing that more people were not injured or killed. I dedicate this story to the memory of Kevin Longinotti who was the only person who died in Nashville after receiving injuries in Centennial Park during the storm.

Peace. Barbara Brown
Edgewood Place, East Nashville
April 16, 2008




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