Stories from the April 16, 1998 Tornado

Watching the weather report on Wednesday, April 15, 1998, I felt a strangely calm sense of the inevitable. “Tornados are coming,” a voice not quite my own said from within. Dan, my boyfriend for over 20 years, and I went to sleep. I usually do not go to sleep with the television on, but did that night. I awoke and sat bolt upright at 2 am, saying aloud, “Tornados are coming.” From outside, I heard a Great Horned Owl cry out. Everyone in the neighborhood, it seemed, had seen the pair, no doubt nesting somewhere nearby, except for me. I went back to sleep, the owl’s call fading as I slipped into a dream.

The next morning, I woke up and did the usual. Breakfast, make coffee, Dan feeds the dogs (Dillon the Border Collie and Bucky the Bischeon Frizee), we tell them to be good as he lets them outside into doggy paradise; a backyard full of bamboo and little pathways and plants that can rebound well from the stomps of doggy feet. I follow them outside and feed the fish in my Koi pond. Now, to work. Tornados are coming.

I drove to my job at at Centennial Art Center in Centennial Park - a job I have had since 1975. I teach pottery and clay sculpture classes and manage the art gallery there. When I arrived at 8:30 AM, as I climbed out of my small pickup truck, the air felt too warm, too thick and too humid. I went inside the Art Center and immediately went to my boss’ office and asked her to come back into the clay classroom/studio area and help me identify the safest place for us to gather should a tornado be likely. We agreed that the only area of the entire Art Center, even halfway safe, was a small storage area off the clay classroom. Even in that area, there was no place to escape exposure to windows.

My Thursday morning class started at 9:30, and around a dozen adult students arrived and began going about their various class activities - working on the potter’s wheel, glazing pots, sculpting, and loading up and turning on the Raku kiln and setting up for that firing in the exterior brick-wall (over 6’ tall) enclosed outdoor studio-courtyard behind the clay classroom. (Raku is a technique involving removing yellow-hot clay items that are hot enough to have melted/molten hot glazes and placing them into a metal can with combustible materials to achieve various interesting effects...) I got all my students attention, after it looked as if all who were coming that day had arrived, and told them bad storms were coming, and that we were doing a tornado drill. They rolled their eyes, and sighed and laughed and otherwise were cheerfully saying it wasn’t going to be necessary. I told them, “Just humor me, and listen.” I told them what to do, and showed them where to go. I even made every one stop what they were doing and follow me into the storage area, where I had them huddle together, and crouch down, turning away from the windows. I told them to cover their heads with their arms, and I made them rehearse the entire process twice.

Going into the painting studio, where a class was meeting, I told the students and teacher to come back to the clay studio’s storage area if it looked like a storm was going to hit. I repeated this again to my students as my afternoon class started, and even made those who had stayed from the morning class, being also enrolled in the afternoon class - go through the drill again. I stopped class a 3rd time and asked the students to tell me what they were to do in case of a tornado. Eyes rolled again and one student who was also in my morning class said, “She’s been making us do this all day! Nothing is going to happen!” as she laughed. I said, “Yes, and you all know what to do, right?” They assured me they did.

Shortly thereafter, the painting teacher left for a Doctor’s appointment, and three of her students were finishing up. I went back and reminded them that they needed to come to the storage area if a bad storm hit. They laughed and said that nothing was going to happen. I stopped by my boss’ office and reminded her.

At around 3:40 PM, a student was starting to remove her large, hot sculptural pot from the Raku kiln with long metal tongs, and was carrying it outside the building into the back courtyard work area, to place into the metal trash barrel. Another student was following her to assist. The phone rang in the gallery, and I went out of the studio to answer it. It was my boyfriend, Dan. He told me that a tornado was near St. Thomas Hospital heading my way and to take cover. I hung up quickly and ran back into the classroom and yelled out, “A tornado is coming now! Come on! Run to cover! This way!” The door to the outdoor courtyard was open, and I saw the two students were still outside, and one still was holding her giant sculptural pot with tongs and was just placing it into a big metal trash barrel, and flames were licking up. Behind them, from deep within the park, I saw the trees start to wildly sway. I ran to the doorway and yelled, “Now! Tornado! Come in!” Looking up, I saw ducks and geese and small birds were flying toward me. I yelled out, “And the birds are leaving the Park!” Behind the trees and birds, I saw - from as wide and high as I could see - an ugly, hideous, greenish black, seething wall - like churning earth and smoke - rapidly approaching the Art Center. It looked like an evil, living thing was devouring the world as it approached. After what seemed an eternity, but had to be mere seconds, my two “Rakuers” finally started toward the building. As the assistant student ran in, the student with the piece in the barrel, yelled out, “My Pot!” and turned back to run toward it. I ran out and pulled her back in, as a blast of thick, warm, wet wind hit my face, yelling, “Forget about it!” As we entered the building we turned to look toward the approaching malevolent darkness as blast of wickedly swirling wind hit and the barrel instantaneously ignited. Flames leapt up over 20 feet into the air to merge with the frothing wall of the tornado as it hit. I pulled the door closed, but it blew outward. The gallery has large windows, and I could see them as I urgently ushered the remaining straggling students into the space in the storage area. The windows were moving in and outward - like rapid breathing - undulating as if they were made of flimsy plastic. It sounded as if a hundred giant helicopters were trying to land on the building, and as I turned to crouch down with the others, I saw the tables and chairs and papers and supplies in the classroom began moving and swirling about, as if being drug here and there by the hands of boisterous poltergeists. My boss had joined us as we were crouching together, and I yelled, “Where are the painting students? “They wouldn’t come!” shouted my boss.

It seemed to pass quickly. Everything was suddenly quieter than normal. The electricity was off. The building was darker, and the usual sounds from the AC unit were silent. We slowly stood up from our crouching positions, and emerged from the space. The door to outdoor studio-courtyard was wide-opened, and we saw the exterior courtyard brick walls were mostly gone - blown over and lying in piles of bricks. The studio tables and chairs and pots were at odd angles or toppled over entirely and supplies were scattered. The student’s Raku pot was smashed, of course. I went into the gallery to discover that the painting display columns, made of stacked sculpture stands, had slid all the way across the gallery and were against the windows. Somehow they were still stacked, though askew. Only one painting had fallen, and it only had a small dent on a corner of the frame. I realigned the stands so they wouldn’t topple and hurt someone. Everything in the building, including the art, looked as if the great outdoors had been placed into a blender, finely ground up, and then sprayed around. Minute bits and pieces of grass and wood and unidentifiable tiny wet specks, rapidly drying, covered everything. The Art Center gallery doors had been forced open from the air pressure and thus prevented the windows from imploding. I still don’t know how so many windows could survive such an onslaught. Also, the wind’s blast had been absorbed or deflected by the exterior brick courtyard walls. Perhaps the walls pushed the wind’s thrust upward and away from the building? think that the walls sacrificed themselves, protecting us, before they themselves collapsed. I don’t know for sure.

The painting class students had ridden out the tornado hunched down on their hands and knees hugging the Coke machine in an open hallway, praying and screaming. They were rattled, but safe. Perhaps their prayers had protected us?

Within minutes, I heard ambulance and police sirens. Leaving the building, I picked my way over the collapsed brick courtyard wall, though fallen trees and debris toward the flashing lights. The park I had known so well was a stranger to me. I felt vulnerable and exposed. My protective “forest dweller” canopy was changed. Gone. So many trees down, and others with their limbs stripped and tattered, revealing a ragged sky of rapidly moving black and gray clouds. . I soon saw bloodied people on gurneys being loaded into ambulances. Someone passed me, hysterical, telling me there was a man trapped under a fallen tree and that rescue crews were trying to save him. My heart fell into utter sorrow as I turned back to slowly walk toward the Art Center, knowing there was nothing I could do but take care of my little corner of the Park and my students. It was at that moment the magnitude of what had happened hit me. A tornado.

Approaching the Art Center, I saw that a large percentage of its courtyard walls even beyond those nearest my classroom were destroyed. I could see roof-tiles missing, but the main building was intact. I climbed over piles of bricks and tree limbs and reentered. Everyone was standing around, not knowing what to do. I told my students and everyone else in the building that they should go home. One student said she would just stay a while since she knew Green Hills traffic would be a mess. I told her, “We just had a tornado. People are hurt. Some of us may not have homes. Please go home so we can lock up, leave, and see how our own homes and loved ones are.” They slowly, in a daze, began leaving. Some of the students quietly thanked me for conducting the tornado drills, and for keeping them safe. I went out into the parking lot and drug limbs and debris from around their cars and directed them to drive over a low area of the parking lot curb, around and over the grass, then directly out to 25th Avenue North, rather than trying to drive through the impassable park roads. When all the students had finally gone, I went back inside. My boss was in shock. That is the only way I can describe her. She had worked at the Art Center since it had opened in 1972, and now she stood in the aftermath of the storm, not knowing what was coming next. Standing with her arms folded tight around her, she abruptly pulled out a rumpled cigarette from inside a clenched fist and lit it up. She had never let anyone know she still smoked. I told her I was locking her in the building, but that she should try to get out before dark. I asked her if she was okay. She nodded that she was. I asked her if she wanted me to stay. She nodded, “no.” I gave her a hug and locked her in, so grateful that the doors would still lock as I cleared debris from the thresholds and secured the building.

I went to my truck, and cleared a path to 25th Avenue, like I had for my students. There was hardly any traffic, as I drove around debris toward Charlotte Avenue. Charlotte was a real mess, and I know I should not have, but I drove over downed power-lines as I headed toward home in Lockeland Springs, in East Nashville. I called myself looking to make sure the power lines were not connected to anything to either side of my crossing, and where I was not sure, I snaked around on both Charlotte and the sidewalks.

I don’t remember much about coming around James Robertson Parkway or around the State Capitol., beyond broken windows, damaged trees and hardly a soul in sight. When I crossed the Victory Memorial Bridge heading toward Main Street, I saw ahead, where South Fifth and Spring Street cross Main, the blue lights of a police car. The road ahead was blocked off by his car. An officer had stopped a couple of cars, and was out of his vehicle, smiling and talking. I cut my engine, got out of my truck, and approached him. I noticed a glittering movement at my feet, and looking down, I was confused. There were a couple dozen shiny, silvery fish, about 3 inches long, flipping and flopping, gasping for watery breath. I asked the policeman, “Uh. Did a minnow truck overturn or something?” He smiled, and said, matter-of-factly, “When the tornado crossed the river, it sucked the fish out and dumped them in the road.” “The tornado crossed the river…” I said, my voice trailing off as I lifted my eyes from the silvery fish, and looking toward my neighborhood up Main Street for the first time, as it hit me - like a blow to my solar plexus - that the storm had gone toward my house.

Returning to my truck, I looked around inside the cab, spotted and picked up an empty cola can, went back outside, and placed three or four flopping fish in the can, thinking I’d put them in my Koi pond as soon as I got home, and save their lives. I was wishing I had something bigger so I could save more fish, as I approached the officer again, and asked him what was I to do, how was I to get home, since I lived in Lockeland Springs. He told me I could not go up Main Street, but I could try to go up Ellington Parkway. I got my truck, started the ignition, and turned left onto Spring Street. My truck’s motor stopped suddenly. As if it was sighing, letting all breath out. I tried to start it. Nothing, no engine lights, not even turning over. The air felt like it was charged, dense with energy. I waited half a minute, and it started suddenly.

Entering Ellington Parkway, I didn’t think things looked too bad. I got off the first exit, Cleveland Street. The next thing I recall is that I crossed Gallatin road, but could not get home. I kept trying to go up roads toward my house, but they were all blocked by a wall of downed trees and chunks of debris. Finally, I parked at H.G. Hills parking lot, picked up my purse and the can of fish, and made my way toward my house. It was so disorienting. Familiar landmarks were bizarrely twisted and covered by pieces of trees and bits and pieces of people’s homes. It as so utterly quiet as I made my way toward my street, some four zigzagging blocks away from H. G. Hills. There were no police or ambulance or fire sirens here. I saw a few totally dazed people standing in their yards, staring vacantly.

Virtually all the giant trees had fallen, and pieces of people’s homes and roofs were scattered about. Climbing over giant downed trees and limbs and power poles and lines, and somehow keeping the can of fish in my hand, I continued on. Everything looked so alien, so very strange. I passed the corner of Calvin and 12th, where old friends had lived until recently moving. The house was only half a house, with a couple of exterior walls and part of the porch left. I stumbled and climbed up to my block of Calvin, finally, and looked toward my home, four houses from the corner. There were no trees or power poles left standing. As I came closer to my house, I noticed, miraculously, that all the trees I could see had fallen parallel to the road, toward the East, missing the homes, for the most part. Odd, but I recall that the trees on the street just north of me had also fallen mostly parallel to the road, but toward the west. A bit of funnel cloud shenanigans, perhaps? The two trees that had lived in my yard for 70 years were broken off a few feet from the ground. Most of the Tudor cottages that make up the majority of homes on my street were built in the early 1930’s, and most of the trees had been planted when the houses were built. Almost all my neighbor’s chimneys were gone, mine included, and my dormer had been crushed by the falling chimney. (I thought this odd, in that when I bought my home, the house inspector told me it was the best chimney he had ever seen in his career. It had never had a fire built in it, and was structurally immaculate.) Large chunks of my roofing shingles were missing, down to the wooden decking. Almost all my storm windows were broken, they had taken the blow. Storm windows are worth the investment, indeed.

Dan’s car was in the driveway, and a huge section of someone’s roof was lying behind it, the outer edge resting where the tires met the driveway gravel. All the garages on my street appeared to be smashed, except mine (because Dan had reinforced its roof rafters and beams when he put a new roof on it a few years earlier). I crawled over the trees and mess and went inside the house with the fish.

The dogs met me at the door, uncharacteristically quiet and clingy and looking at me with pleading eyes, as If I could set right the world. I called out for Dan. No answer. I was sick with dread that he had been caught out in the storm. I thought about the fish, and that the dogs needed to be let out, but when I surveyed the scene outside my back door, I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t tell if my fence was up or down. The neighbor’s garage, who lives behind me, was in my back yard, as was my other neighbor's giant hickory tree. I could open the back door, but not step beyond it because the steps down to my yard and to my to my Koi pond - and the soda-can-fish salvation - was blocked by tree limbs and parts of peoples’ homes. My pond was not even visible from my back porch anymore, though it is a mere fifteen feet from my back door. It too was silent. No soothing sound of water - the power to its pump off. I rushed back inside gently turned the can upside down, trying to get the fish out into a bowl. They slid out, one by one, their shimmering light now dull. They were all dead. They did not survive the long trip from Main Street. I flushed them down the toilet to a watery grave. Dillon and Bucky followed me as I looked around inside the house, surveying the damage within. Only one interior window pane was broken, in what I call my garden room, at the back of my house. A limb had smashed through it. There were cracks in the living room ceiling, near the fireplace.

I went back out the front door, and as I stood in what had been a once lovely front yard, I heard someone calling my name. “Lena! Lena! There you are! Thank God!” it was my older sister, Nancy, waving her arms, wearing a huge smile, and following behind her was a grave and brave looking Dan, They slowly made their way toward me, climbing over all the bits and pieces of the neighborhood, and greeted me with hugs, so relieved to see me - I being equally relieved to see Dan. Nancy, breathless, gushed out the story of how she had made it to my house, and how she and Dan had somehow driven to the Art Center to look for me - like my journey in reverse, sans fish - only to find my boss (whose boyfriend had just arrived to get her) who told them I had gone home. They, too, had to park far away. Dan had a cellphone, and I called my Dad to let him know we were okay. Dan told me his story of riding out the storm, rushing himself and the dogs into the closet under the basement/guest room stairs after hanging up his phone after calling me. He said he ran upstairs as soon as it passed, and looked out the front door, just as a dark, blackish colored, “military looking” helicopter flew fast and low in a direction that followed the tornado’s path, as if in pursuit. After she was assured that Dan and I would be okay, and once she realized we were not going home with her, but staying put, big sis Nancy left.

Dan and I scrambled up the block to check on a neighbor’s house who was out of town. Some trees were uprooted instead of snapped off, and some water-mains were busted. We were worried about gas-lines too. Dan brought a wrench, and cut off the neighbor’s gas because it looked like the line was indeed damaged. He cut off some neighbors water at their meters whose mains were broken. (After the “gas” neighbor returned, Dan was thanked because there could have been an explosion had he not shut it off.)

Four doors down from our house, the entire second floor of Todd’s house was simply gone. His bed was still neatly made-up in the bedroom we could see, closest to the street, but his roof and walls were gone.

Neighbors began to arrive home or emerge from their wrecked houses, to call to one another across the piles of debris.

As darkness fell, Dan and I got into his car, and turned on the radio. We thought we would get some emergency information, or be advised on what to do, or be told what had happened. We kept changing stations. The only reference we heard about the storm was a D.J. who said as he giggled, “We have been getting some cell phone calls from folks over in the East side who don’t have electricity. Yeah, I know it’s dark over there. Just calm down now, they’ll have those lights back on in no time!” He then played another song. Dan and I looked at each other. I think we both said in unison, “They don’t know. No one knows, do they?” We couldn’t figure out where the police were, or any help at all. The storm hit well before dark, with several hours of daylight left. We stayed in Dan’s car well into the night, listening to the radio, checking the stations for someone to tell us something. Dan’s car battery finally gave out, and we went to bed.

The next morning, Friday, April 17, I awoke, just after sunrise, and went outside. A guy with a chain saw was in the road. I asked him if he was with the city. He said, “No, I live nearby, drove past last night on the way home, and know what it’s like to be in a disaster.” He started his saw, and started clearing a narrow path down the road. “A disaster.” There. I heard it. More chain saws started as neighbors began getting trees off their cars and houses. Other neighbors could only stand around staring, like I had seen them do the day before. Some were crying. A voice, calling out, grew closer. It was a slender, fair-haired man about 40 years old, yelling something out in a voice sounding like someone who would have been crying out for people to “Throw out your dead” after a plague’ He called out, “I have a message from Metro! I have a message from Metro! We are to take our limbs and branches to Shelby park on Saturday, between the hours of 10 and 2.” Someone yelled back “What about the pieces of houses and bricks and roofs and giant trees?” The messenger repeated, “We are to take our limbs and branches to Shelby Park on Saturday between 10 and 2, and we have to take them all there ourselves.” Dumbstruck, the neighbors within hearing range watched the man pick his way down the street, calling out his message as his voice and slender figure faded from sound and sight.

Around 10 AM, a path from Gallatin Road, up Calvin Avenue and almost to 14th had been cleared wide enough for a Channel 2 News Van to come up the couple of blocks. I made my way toward the Van, and saw a young woman, talking into a cellphone. I Overheard her say, “Yeah, I got shots of the church and the church windows.” She paused, then said, “No, the neighbors are just fine, everybody's really calm. It’s just a bunch of trees and telephone poles. It’s a wrap. I’m heading back in now. See you in a little while.” She started to climb back into her van as she hung her phone on her hip. I went up to her and said, “Excuse me, Miss. The neighbors aren’t calm. We are in Shock.” She curled her lip at me and sneered, saying “What?” “Yes, shock.” I answered. “And, if you look up the street here, you can’t really see from here because of all the trees and telephone poles, the top of Todd’s house is gone. Around this block, chunks of houses are missing, and I hear it gets worse up Eastland, but no one can get through.” “What!?” she exclaimed. “Where!?” she asked. I pointed her in the right direction. I understand, that that evening she was broadcasting “Live” from Todd’s second floor. I don’t know. We had no power. Later that same day, Dan managed to cut his way to my Koi pond, and check the yard, and temporarily repair our 6’ privacy fence so we could let the dogs out into the yard again. They were very confused, and like before, stayed close when they first ventured out side with us. The condition of my pond devastated me. There were so many tree branches and different colored roof shingles and stuff down in it. As I tried to lift the branches out, I saw my Koi - some over a foot long _ had rents, holes and torn places in their sides. They were missing chunks of scales and flesh, and were gasping for air at the top. My Shubunkin (a hardy,single-tailed fancy goldfish with a pattern known as calico) were equally injured. I knew I had to get a generator to save them. Our house has gas water and gas stove, both without any electrical starters, so we did not need electricity for those basics. My fish were another story. Injured, they could not survive stagnating, contaminated water.

The next day, Saturday, suddenly action was all around us. Dan has a friend who is a great roofer, who rushed over and dried-in our roof, protecting the house from the rain that was on its way. On Sunday, people stated showing up. Ordinary people who said, “I was in a flood...” or “My house in Kansas was destroyed...” or “My Mama’s house burned down. I know how hard this is for you...” This went on for several days. They would ask what we needed done. I remember one woman well. I asked her if she could just help pick up the glass, and she spent hours picking up bits of glass that was all over our yard.

We got a message from Metro. We were now told to bring our debris to the curb, and Metro would haul it away from us. All the neighbors and those who showed up to help started to do just that. NES showed up and started putting up new poles, very fast. It was several weeks, though, until power and phones were restored, not for lack of hard work on behalf of the pole men.

On Sunday, Dan and I hiked up Eastland, and saw that the road ahead was still blocked. I saw an old woman sitting in a wheelchair being hoisted over a downed tree in the middle of Eastland Avenue. A neighbor told us the people were still trapped in the nursing home. As we came home, a friend stopped me on the street and gave me a feather. He told me he had found the Great Horned Owls. Both were dead. The feather was from one of its wings. I was crushed. Old people trapped in the nursing home. Our precious owls, gone.

I stopped by the Art Center while Dan and I were in route to borrow a generator to try to save my fish. Dan had found one somehow, and it had been dropped off at a friend’s house across town in Silvan Park. The Art Center seemed naked, its protective courtyard walls all but gone. I went inside and looked at the paintings in the gallery. I found a dry clean cloth somewhere, and to my amazement. all the bits of debris just dusted off the paintings. No stains were left behind. I cleaned each one. Looking back up, I met a couple of Parks’ ‘Higher ups” who were out for a tour of the facilities in the Park. I had my camera with me, and took a shot of their smiling faces. They took a picture of me, my fists were clenched, and I have a look of absolute anguish. They had no damage at home. They had not been near the Art Center when it was hit. They just had no idea.

Dan and I arrived to pick up the generator. Driving through the pristine streets to our friend’s house was surreal to us. Our friend greeted us with, “Oh! It’ was terrible! Terrible! You should see! Look, across the street, the neighbors awning was bent. Oh, he’s already fixed it. But, the tree! A tree fell down in the alley! Come! See!” We followed her a few steps to look down the alley. “Oh, they have already cleaned it up!” “She has no idea.” I thought. We had to hurry home. It was getting late, and a curfew had finally been set for our neighborhood. We left our friend still talking about how hard her neighborhood had been hit. We were flabbergasted.

We got the generator going before dark, and the pond’s pump running again. I hoped it would be enough to save my fish.

Rubberneckers had been clogging the just-cleared streets in our neighborhood the last 2 days. Strange, odd types, in old, beat up cars, for the most part, looking and pointing, and cursing us if we looked back too long and hard at them. Neighbors were all trying to salvage pieces of their houses, carrying things around, asking if this or that belonged to you or them. I stacked piles and piles of bricks from our chimney, and found one of our roof vents somewhere. A neighbor up the block found the other. Both the vents soon vanished from our yard. I made a sign on a piece of someone’s siding that had ended up in my yard that read, “Bricks Stay,” hoping no one would steal them. Word of looters on mountain bikes was spreading. I got in touch with my Dad, and Dan borrowed his pistol.

I had been trying to contact my insurance agent via Dan’s cellphone. I finally called him at home. I politely told his wife I was trying to get in touch with him. She screamed at me, practically cursing me out about bothering him at home. My next door neighbor’s agent came by with coffee by day three. I put a sign that read “NATIONWIDE?” across my brick pile. My next door neighbor saw an Nationwide car going up the street a couple of days later and flagged him down. He was in from out of town, just to give estimates on car damage, but was qualified for houses too, so he ended up helping me. He was in town for several weeks. My own agent of over 20 year never did come by or contact me.

All the neighbors decided we needed to cook everything we could - that was going to spoil - from our freezers, and just in time, we had a cook out in a lady’s backyard (who I will not name to protect her privacy). Her windows were mostly boarded up or covered with plastic by now, but her backyard had been tidied up considerably. Everyone brought piles of food and we grilled and boiled and broiled and ate until well into the lantern-lit night.

We lit a bonfire, with lots of stuff around to burn, and as the evening slowed down, the lady whose backyard we were in pulled me aside and told me, “You may think I’m crazy, but on Thursday morning, I was up in the attic, going through some old things, and my husband appeared. Well, he’s been dead for many years, and has never appeared to me before. He said, ‘Honey, you stay away from the windows now. You stay away from them.’ He faded away, and I went about my day, wondering if I had lost my mind. Around 3:30 I got an urge to take a long, hot bath. I never take baths in the afternoon, but I just had to. I was running the bath, got in, bubbles and all, with the faucet on full blast. I lay there soaking in the tub with the water running for about 20 minutes. I got out, put on my robe, and went into the kitchen. Low and behold, all the windows were blown out. There was stuff from the great outdoors and God only knows all over the kitchen. Most all my house’s windows were blown, except for the bathroom. I hadn’t heard the tornado because of the faucet running, and ended up being clam and relaxed, in the safest place, besides down in my basement, I could be in. The bathroom is the only room without damage.”

I heard that soon former Mayor Bill Boner came by feeding people, and Vice President Al Gore came by and visited the neighborhood. No one had seen Nashville’s Mayor Bredesen, as of then.

One day, early on, a big truck from Montana outfitted with a giant wench and a crew of four showed up, offering to cut up our two giant trees and pull the stumps and haul it all away for $100. They said they follow storms in the spring and summer so they can trap and snowshoe all winter. We hired them, they were done in no time. I soon after heard warnings from Metro not to hire anyone who just “showed up.” Neighbors who didn’t hire the ones who “showed up,” had to pay about $1,000 to remove one tree. The neighbor behind me, with lots of trees, got a $50,000 estimate to remove her trees. She ended up with the corporation she works for getting everyone at work to volunteer to help clear her downed trees and debris One of her overzealous volunteers on a Bob Cat (he shouldn’t have been operating it, he was so erratic) almost tore my fence down trying to clear her land. I ran and had to jump in front of him to stop him, spraining my ankle on the way.

One night, early on, around 10 PM, we heard someone trying to break through the back fence to steal the generator - our best guess - and Dan (who had been driving out of the neighborhood to recharge his phone, thankfully) called the police. The young, terrified officer came, and trembling, looked out the back door toward the back yard. We could still hear the attempt to bust down our fence. The officer wouldn’t go back there. Dan was furious. He barked, “I’ll go, and went toward the sound, screaming, “I hear you back there you son of a bitch!” The officer then followed behind Dan. “The police are here, and you are going to get it! Get out of here or die!” The sound stopped, and we heard someone scrambling on foot up the alley. The officer left. We started shutting off the generator at night, so as to not tempt thieves. We slept with a pistol next to the bed, something we hadn’t done before the tornado.

The Red Cross showed up and gave us soup. They drove their vans up and down the streets. Everyone in the neighborhood was working so hard, trying to secure their home and protect them and clean up their property, so we all were so grateful for the Red Cross for feeding us. I know that many times I wouldn’t have stopped working long enough to prepare something to eat. The Red Cross is great in my book.

I took an old chest of drawers and spray painted it, using the leaves from “old friends,” trees who had lost their lives, as stencils, memorializing them. Neighbors came by and remarked at how I had turned so much sadness into something lovely. (I still have that chest of drawers.)

Odd items showed up. A neighbor brought by a little bit of pottery shard she had found in another neighbor’s yard a block away, thinking that I, the artist, could make something creative out of it. (I had been collecting bits of stuff, thinking I’d make a mosaic someday, and word had spread.) I held out my hand, and she placed what actually turned out to be a fragment from a pottery bird feeder I had made that had been hanging in my backyard that had been destroyed in the storm. The strangest thing I found my back yard was a brand new lawn mower blade, halfway down the 10’ or so deep tall pile of shredded trees and debris that covered my entire yard. It still had the Ace Hardware price sticker on it. I though t it must belong to the neighbor behind me, whose garage had landed in my backyard, but she said she didn’t have a lawn mower. There are thousands of different colored roof shingles. I saw many of them in my yard, from tiny bits, to large sections.

As the days passed, all us neighbors kept dragging the debris to the curb. I was using vacation time, since classes were all canceled at the Art Center because of the mess. Dan, though, had to go to work, during the day, after a week or so. Word spread one day that there were volunteers to help us all out. The problem was, no one knew where they were or how to get some to help us. We had no Television. Then, I heard a Volunteer Tent was at the corner of Woodland and 14th. I went down there, and up to the tent, where a Councilman at Large was standing. I told him I needed a volunteer to help me with some things. He said I had to phone in my request for a volunteer. I asked him, “How are we supposed to phone in a request when none of us have a phone?” He said “That’s not my problem. Anyway, today’s the last day, and we are closing down the volunteer service right this minute.” He started gathering papers, and cups and stuff. “But,” I said, earnestly, “My neighbors and I just found out a there were volunteers available to help us, and it’s too late?” Mr. At Large threw up his arms - hands in the air - huffily, exclaiming loudly, “I just don’t know what you people expect of me. I can’t do a thing about all your problems...” He kept screaming and carrying on and packing his little tent stuff up, so I quietly left as he fumed noisily on.

I had been trying to save a little dogwood tree tn the front yard near the curb, that had emerged twisted and tattered from beneath one of by downed 70 year olds. I made a splint and took bark from a dogwood branch from a destroyed tree a neighbor had and tried to graft it to the stripped places on my poor baby tree. It became a symbol of healing and hope for me.

Odd, I would venture out into other parts of town, and from post-tornado-day-one, people would say cheerily, ‘” guess things are getting back to normal!” or “Isn’t it wonderful, all the volunteers helping out everyone!” “Isn’t it great that no one was hurt!” I was confused. I had seen the bloody people on stretchers being put into ambulances in Centennial Park, while the young man - who later died - was still trapped under the tree. Volunteers? The strangers who just showed up were not part of any organized effort. Nothing was normal.

Word got around the neighborhood, from a source at the Mayor’s office, that Bredesen had turned down an offer for assistance from the National Guard, just minutes after the tornado hit, saying that Nashville doesn’t need “tanks and machine guns.” That seems so peculiar. We had no police protection for 3 days, and some peoples’ homes were gone and they had no place to stay. The Guard brings shelters, order, a feeling of protection - a feeling that some one gives a damn. Then, one day, we heard Mayor Bredeson was going to meet with the neighbors at Lockeland Springs School. Everyone was talking about it.

Before sunrise, on the day we were to have our meeting with the Mayor, I awoke to a terrible noise outside in my front yard. I ran outside to discover that all up and down the road, Metro Public Works Bull Dozers and Bob Cats were shoving all the debris, tree limbs... all we had drug and tossed to the curb, back into our yards, as fast as the dozers could move. I grabbed a two by four, held it aloft, across and above my chest, in both hands, and stood in front of the giant Bull Dozer, between it and the tiny dogwood I had been nursing daily. The driver, white hard-hat and hard-set jaw, moved his stick shift forward and back, pushing the now towering pile ever closer toward my tiny self. I screamed, crying, tears streaming down my face, “You are not going to kill this tree!” I know he couldn’t hear me, but he at last relented and went to the neighbors’ yards, and along with his troop of marauders, they managed to undo weeks worth of our cleanup efforts. All the neighbors were so upset. We had been told to drag stuff the the curb...

The meeting at Lockeland School was so crowded, we could not fit into the auditorium, so they had to split us into two groups. I was in the second group, and after we were seated and waiting to begin, I spoke to a young woman siting on my right, who lives on Setlif, whose house was totally flattened. The meeting began. Bredesen said a few forgettable things, and opened it up for questions. Someone asked what to do about the stuff in our yards. Bredesen leapt forward into his response, quickly stating, “Metro will not remove anything from your yards. You are responsible for that.” Mummers rose from the crowd. I whispered to another woman, who sat on my left, that we had been told by Metro to put stuff on the curb, and that Metro Public Works’ Bull Dozers were shoving things in are yards that morning. She whispered back to me. “Yeah, that happened at my house, too.” She instantly stood up and said as much to the Mayor. He turned red in the face, and muttered something. Others asked questions. No love fest was this gathering of neighbors. Bredesen explained as to delays being caused by not knowing the damage was so widespread for 36 hours. I stood and told the story about the Channel 2 News Van, and how I know no one knew what was going on until after 10 AM the next day, and after finishing the account, I asked him, “How could you not know? If one cabin blew away in Montana, word would get out. Someone would know. This woman” (I pointed to my right) “has no home. It is flattened. How could you not know? Why didn’t anyone know?” The Mayor did not even acknowledge that I had spoken. He turned to his left, and walked a few paces, turned to face the rather pissed-off neighborhood again, and took another question.

The next morning, before sunrise, a great, familiar noise stated again. Rushing out, there were countless Bull Dozers and Bob Cats, with both local and surrounding states’ license plates - dragging and shoving debris out of our yards, up and down the roads, as fast as they could. Seems the Mayor changed his mind. Later I heard only Lockeland Springs neighborhood had its debris returned to the curbs. Surrounding neighborhoods’ debris remained pushed back into their yards, so they had to deal with it. Squeaky wheel. Yes, Lockeland Springs has a strong neighborhood association.

Around this time, my friend from Sylvan Park, from whose house we had picked up the generator, came by our house. I saw her standing out in our yard. She was crying her eyes out, sobbing uncontrollably. As I went outside, I heard her say, “I had no idea! I didn’t know how bad it was!” She continued on, in shock at the condition of our home and neighborhood. I told her I that I had thought we were doing rather well at cleaning up. But then I assured her that not many people actually knew the truth about how big it was.

I love my Dan. He has power tools and knows how to use them. He did not want to be in charge of the over $50,000 worth of repairs, though, because he had his own clients to take care of. I hired a licensed contractor, recommended by a neighbor, who took half the money as down payment. Other neighbors came by and reported that the contractor would drive up, get out of his truck, sip his coffee, stand around a few minutes, and drive away. In all, he only repaired one section of our fence. He disappeared with half of our insurance money. I ended up having Dan hire subcontractors to do the work. He knows a brick mason who beautifully restored our chimney, a roofer who fixed our roof. Dan ended up having to do much of the work himself.

Now, I wish to clarify something. Virtually all the homes in my neighborhood had already been fully restored prior to the 1998 tornado. The storm did not “...do us a favor by destroying those trashy old houses...” Many great homes, big and small, suffered greatly, as did their people.

In closing, recall, the dogwood died, I could not save the minnows or Koi and the owls are gone forever. But, strange and wonderful plants started springing up from the tornado’s airborne seeds, the tough Shubunkin lived and I have a feather.

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