Stories from the April 16, 1998 Tornado

I was a freelance book editor at the time, so I worked from home. I remember that whole day was exhausting because there were tornado warnings starting at about 6:00 a.m. They kept coming on and off all day, so after a while I got a bit used to them and felt pretty confident that we would be fine.

Sometime in the afternoon, I would say close to 3:00 p.m., I was talking to a friend who lived in the West End area. We were both watching the latest weather update and realized that the tornado was headed right for us. We quickly hung up the phone and got to a safe place. I ran to the basement. I could still hear the loud television reporting the latest information. I could also hear the sounds of the wind and rain picking up, though it was much more muffled down there than I thought it would be.

I had the cordless phone with me. My mother-in-law called to see if I had seen the weather, and I was thinking, I’ve got to get off the phone! Just at that moment all of the power went off. I could see just a bit outside through a small window on our basement door. I could see evidence of the wind. I could hear things that sounded like they were being picked up and dropped. It was scary to be there alone and not have anything to do but wait it out.

While the storm was raging, lo and behold, I could hear the phone ring upstairs—we still had one “land line” and the phone lines weren’t down yet. Not sure what to do, I made the probably foolish decision to run upstairs and answer it. It was my husband. “What are you doing on the phone?!?” he demanded. “Get downstairs!” Kind of funny, thinking back. I immediately went back downstairs, but not before I noticed the green cast to the light coming through our windows.

Finally, when I felt it was reasonably safe to come upstairs, I looked out the windows and saw that a tree from the neighbors’ yard had landed on our shed in the back. I went to open the front door, and the only thing I could see was a giant treetop—that tree had also fallen from the neighbors’ house, just missing our porch. I could not believe it was all happening. I could tell that we didn’t have much damage ourselves, so I started looking around and trying to call my husband on my cell phone—to no avail, because all the lines were jammed. By then our “land line” was finally down. So there was no way to get in touch with anybody.

The main thing that struck me as I looked around was that so many trees were down, and from the view on my street, I noted that all the trees seemed to be lying in the same direction, going straight up Ordway and away from Gallatin Road—all the trees I could see were lying parallel to the street. It was as if the wind just pulled them straight up and laid them down. My conclusion was that we didn’t have a touchdown in our immediate area; perhaps the funnel cloud jumped up for a moment then hit lower a few blocks down. I’m certainly no expert.

I didn’t know if I should stay or go. And at the time I wasn’t thinking that another storm could come through, which it did later. I believe the police came around and told us there was a gas leak. The policeman wasn’t sure if I should start my car and was saying they might evacuate the area. Eventually I decided to take my chances and take my car up the road, north on Gallatin. I found a woman walking around before I left the house, so I offered her a ride. I believe her name was Sylvia, and she lived on Forrest, two streets up from mine on Ordway. I never saw her after that day; I wonder if she still lives there.

We could see as we drove that no businesses had lights on, until we came upon a floral supply store. I don’t remember the name of it. I think it was on the property where the current Walgreens is. They were kind to let us come in and use the phone. I couldn’t reach my husband at work or on his cell phone. I did get my mother-in-law, and I believe she told me that my husband was on his way over to our house. I was also able to phone my other family members. We noticed that the sky was looking none-too-friendly, but I don’t think we knew there was another imminent threat. All the while, my husband had arrived home but obviously didn’t find me there. He could see the car was gone, but didn’t have much time to think about it because the next tornado was on its way, so it was he who went to the basement this time.

Eventually, through leaving messages with my mother-in-law, we were able to find each other despite the jammed cell phone lines and roadblocks, etc. It took us about 4 hours to finally get to each other. I was so glad to see him. We grabbed a few things from the house and went to stay with the in-laws.

I later found out that my husband’s office had been keeping up with the weather and had a roof they could go out on to see what was happening. From his office roof in Hillsboro Village, he watched as the giant, menacing funnel cloud headed toward downtown and on toward East Nashville. Needless to say, he was worried sick knowing I was there. He was watching it all go down from a distance and there was nothing he could do but pray.

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