The Tornados of March 2, 2012

There was no Dorothy or Todo or Wicked Witch nor Munchkins.

This was real, with real towns, real people, and real homes, and it happened largely in our mission, at least the most publicized incidents. The tornados that swept through this part of the country February 29th through March 2nd, cut a swath of destruction that left hundreds homeless and over thirty dead. Gratefully, all of our missionaries were protected and kept out of harm's way, though some were frighteningly close. The days that have followed have found many of them, espcially in the New Albany Zone, serving and helping as best they can, the good people in Indiana and Kentucky who were devastated by the storm. The need will continue, especially as the volunteers from neighboring states go home in a week or two, and our Elders and Sisters will have plenty to do, and many stories to tell. What follows is two of those stories, from Sister Ford and Sister Nelson:

(The Sisters in Salem, Indiana, were on an exchange with the Charlestown, Indiana Sisters. Names of members and investigators are X'd out.)

Sister Nelson's story:

The XXXX Family live (or I guess lived) in a small house near the Henryville High School. Like any family, they were experiencing trials of all different kinds and intensities. They were humble yet welcoming. I always enjoy walking around someone's home and looking at the pictures on the walls and the different doilies and keepsakes that mean enough to them to be prominently displayed. We sat on a comfortable couch and played with their dogs and their guinea pig and talked about trying to find the time between work schedules and school to have family scripture study and prayer. Our lesson was supposed to be about 45 minutes or so, but 20 minutes in the husband looked at us and said, "There's a tornado that's supposed to hit here in about 45 minutes. You might want to head home and take cover. You won't want to be out driving when the storm hits." Neither of us were very scared, but we didn't want to undervalue this man's advice, so we said goodbye and wished them a good week and headed for Charlestown.

Once we got in the car the weather started to look worse and worse. The wind was blowing and the rain was coming in spurts. The drive to C-Town is about 20 minutes or so from Henryville. We're both from Las Vegas so we had no way of gauging the weather to tell how serious this warning was or if it was just a precaution but the storm would avoid the area. When we got into town and could hear the tornado siren screaming full blast, I looked at Sister Noakes and raised my eyebrows indicating my approval if she wanted to push her foot a little harder on that gas pedal. Instead of heading for the apartment (which is on the second floor) we drove to a member family's home. They have a basement. We went down there and tried to all get to know each other without trying to scare their two young children. ... And we really did have a good time together-- except for the fact that every couple minutes we couldn't take it anymore and would go look out one of their tiny windows at the skies, looking for signs of a tornado.

I'd always heard that the sky turns green in tornado weather. It does. Not a rich, leafy green, but it turns more like a pukey, watery green. The sky was foggy and green almost like they draw different gasses in the cartoons. The wind was crazy. The hail was very loud on the storm door. We had to raise our voices to hear each other. The mission leaders were trying to get ahold of us and find out if we were safe and in a basement but the cell-towers were either damaged or crowded because we couldn't get any messages back out besides our initial ones saying we were heading for a basement. I kept trying to call the Sisters in Salem because I knew they had an appointment in Pekin ....and Pekin was supposed to be in the tornado's path. Of course we couldn't get ahold of them so we waited and texted because texting seemed to be working a little better than calling. We sat in the basement and watched and listened and waited and when we'd get ready to go upstairs the XXXXs would check the radio and it would say that the alert had been extended another 45 minutes or so. It was extended a couple times. We were safe where we were. I knew we would be. I've been so blessed as a missionary to be able to have complete faith that the Lord will keep me safe if I use my brain and try to avoid danger. I don't know if I've ever had faith so pure and impenetrable as I've been blessed with in regards to my safety as a missionary except for maybe when I was a small child. I felt calm through the whole thing in regards to myself and the people we were with. I was anxious and in awe as I watched the sky, but I knew I'd be safe. I know that faith and peace comes in large part because of the many people I have back home praying for me....

The storm finally passed completely. There were flash flood warnings, but we were in the country enough that we thought we could chance it. We went outside. I don't know why, but it was beautiful weather. The sun was shining and the clouds were dispersing. The fields were wet and the ground was muddy, but it was beautiful. I looked up at the house to make sure there wasn't any damage to the roof and that's when I saw a double rainbow all the way across the sky. It was enormous and so vivid that it almost looked tangible. I admired it for a bit and then continued my search of the area around us. When I looked back up, the rainbow had disappeared. It left so quickly.

Part of the incredible double rainbow after the storm

We tried calling people in the area to make sure they were ok. That was pointless. The phones wouldn't work for any of us. So, we jumped in our cars. The XXXXs went to one part of Henryville and we headed back to the area of the XXXXs'. We didn't know yet that Henryville had been wiped out. As we drove, we looked around, trying to take in what we were seeing. I wish I had paid better attention on our drive through there an hour earlier. I knew it had all been intact and in one piece, but as we drove through it was hard to believe that it had ever stood on its own. Trees were everywhere. GIANT trees were all lying horizontally. Their roots, just these huge tufts of dirt were pulled out of the ground like nothing. Power lines were torn and down and wires were strewn everywhere. Cars were dented from the softball-sized hail. The paneling of houses was caught on power lines and in trees and on cars. Light poles were smashed into cars. The insulation was showing on most houses. There were giant chunks of paneling gone where the hail had hit. Sticks and leaves and mud covered the pavement. The farther into the town we got, the worse the damage was. The roads were blocked off where the worst damage was and people were parking their cars and walking in past the barricades. It was raining again. Cars were getting stuck in the mud. The truck in front of us got stuck and tried to rev out and just showered our windshield with mud. Families were walking together, hand in hand, to find the people they loved behind the police blockades. We kept trying to get through to the XXXXs but the phone lines wouldn't be working well for the next couple days. After an hour of trying to find a way through, we realized there wasn't a way in and the XXXXs probably weren't there anymore anyways so we headed to an appointment back in Charlestown.

Late that night was the first time that someone in the ward was able to make contact with Sister XXXXs. They were all safe. Their house is gone. It doesn't exist anymore. Those walls I paced, looking at their family pictures, the heater that was making all the weird noises, the comfy couches, they're gone. Just gone. We sat and visited with this family in their home and an hour later that home wasn't there anymore. It's all so crazy. What a blessing it was that the Lord protected us and them. It's almost too much to think about without getting emotional. We spent the rest of the night trying to check on people we care about. Driving places was pointless. Calling was almost as pointless. Sister Ford and Sister Wood had been in the home of a member and were teaching her friend. They were listening to the weather report and the reporter said that the tornado would go south of Pekin when the power went out. (They never got to hear the report that actually Pekin WOULD be hit) The Sisters were like, "Should we go down to the basement?" The member said, "It's not that close. We'll be fine here." The Sisters were still a little wary. The member finally said, "You can go down there if you want, we're staying up here." The Sisters felt stupid and neither of them knew much about tornadoes so they sat upstairs and waited the storm out. After it passed they started the drive back to Salem. A mile away from the member's home Sister Wood asked Sister Ford, "Was that junkyard here on our drive in?" "Uhh... I don't think so." That's when they realized how close they'd been to the tornadoes. An entire trailer park was wiped out. It looks like matchsticks. It was just flattened.

I haven't been able to watch the news or anything so I don't know if these stories have been well-covered or not, but there was a family in Pekin that got blown away while trying to find cover. The dad, mom and two kids died. The last child was found 10 miles away from their home and was flown to Louisville to the ICU, but later died as well. There was another story in a different town where a grandma was trying to hold on to her grandchildren and had one in each arm. She was able to hold on to one of them but broke her collar bone in the process. The other was ripped out of her arm and was found dead in a field. It's all so heartbreaking. People have lost everything. They've lost their homes, their cars, their comfort, their everything. Where do you even begin to pick up the pieces?

Saturday morning we headed to the church to be part of a cleaning party. (I hadn't anticipated this so the only clothing I brought that wasn't a dress was a moose nightgown and some reindeer pajama pants... I borrowed a shirt and had a sweatshirt but I was the only person there without jeans on... The other Sisters ended up joining us. Some of the other missionaries in the zone came as well. The High School in Henryville and the surrounding homes were destroyed and the police still wouldn't let people in so we went to north Henryville to a member's farm. All I can say was that it was the most surreal experience of my life. Hands down. I felt like I was watching a movie. I won't be able to describe it justly, but it seriously looked like-- haha, the only thing I can compare it to is like a tornado went through it. The barn had completely collapsed. Half of his house was gone. It looked like a dollhouse where you have three walls but the fourth wall doesn't exist so that you can see inside. That's what this looked like. You could see in and see his tv and his chairs and everything in their proper places, but outside where the fourth wall had been was a dump. The chicken coop had been carried into the mess and there was a shed and miscellaneous other things just all thrown in a pile. The trees looked like those razor commercials where they do a close-up of the whiskers being cut. Some of the trees were completely uprooted and some of them were cut off near the stump. You could clearly decipher the path the tornado took because some trees were still standing but there was a definite line, a WIDE line where the trees were all mowed down. Paneling as wrapped around the power line. Trees were blocking the long drive. Wood was everywhere. I looked around and honestly felt like the best thing we could do for the place is light a match and burn it all up. But of course you can't do that. So, we went to work clearing trees. There were men with chainsaws hacking through the branches and us missionaries hauled the pieces out into the field to make a burn pile. We made a salvage pile of non-tree items. We made a trash pile. We made a wood pile for next winter. But most of it went to the burn pile. It was muddy and cold and bright. We got very dirty, sweaty and clammy. At one point we found a little bird that had been injured and probably isn't alive anymore. Because I had gloves on and because of the circumstances, I was able to pick it up without a lot of anxiety and protect it and find a safer place to let it try and recover. At one point we went in to the house and went to the bathroom (though it was hard because there was no power so we went in the dark). The man who lived there was telling us how it was by far the scaredest he'd ever been in his life. Said it sounded worse than a double freight train. There were forty of us and we spent almost 6 hours there and all we could do was clear his driveway of trees. We didn't even make a dent in the work he needs done there. It was just insane.

Elder Gardner

Elder Banks

The little bird Sister Nelson found in the mess

Elder Ferguson

Elder Banks and Elder Corry

Elder Corry on the phone

The next day was Fast Sunday. None of us fasted though because the last two hours of church were cancelled and after Sacrament Meeting we left to help out again. This time Sister Ford and I went to Pekin and helped at the drop-off center for donations. The United Methodist Church in Pekin let us use its gymnasium. Everything you can imagine from clothes, food, hygiene supplies, toys, dishes, clocks, motor oil, rakes, baby formula, everything was being dropped off. Truckloads. Everyone wanted to help in any way they could. As they'd drop it off, we were with a group of people that had to sort it all. It was a madhouse. People were folding and sorting clothes. People were busing food to tables. People were piling toilet-paper. The gym is a big gym. You can't hardly see the walls anymore. There is SO much stuff in there. It was hectic and tiring and hot and frantic. But it was so wonderful to see the people come in with boxes full of anything they could think of to help out with. People were cleaning off their shelves. People were buying things in bulk from the stores. People were coming in from over 100 miles away to donate. There were groups of people cutting trees and trying to clear rubble. It was a full day of helping people as fast as we could. They set up the gym like a store so people who needed help could come in and get a shopping cart and walk through and get whatever they needed and walk out. It was of course all free of charge. People would come in and try to take the bare minimum saying they didn't need everything they were being offered, just a little. It was so humbling to see them and imagine what they were experiencing emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually. The people helping at the donation center would insist people take more and usually the person would leave with a carload of things, barely even enough to keep them going, but being so grateful for what they'd been given because before they got there they literally had NOTHING. People were coming in and donating and then asking what else they could do. Some would stay and help organize. We didn't need to know each other's names or be formally introduced or have an excuse to speak to each other. We all talked like we were friends and family because we were that day. No one was afraid of us or timid around us because of our name tags. We were just people that day. And people meant family after something like this. It was like living the law of consecration. People had excess. They'd bring it in and people who were in need would come and get what they needed. No money was involved. No bickering over who earned what. It was all of us helping each other like we're supposed to. How sad that Heavenly Father has to send tornadoes to His children before they'll start acting this way towards each other. And the Spirit is so strong when we will show love like that. The Spirit filled whatever was left in that gym to the point where I thought the place was going to burst. It was uplifting and humbling.

So often we pretend like we're in control of things. We trick ourselves into thinking that we can do anything we want to. We can do all things. Then something like this happens and we remember Who really has power, Who really is in control. We can do all things through God and not through any other way. There is a man in the Salem Ward who bore his testimony on Sunday.... He broke down and cried like a baby as he told us that his wife was in the High School under a conference table holding onto some children as the tornadoes passed through Henryville. He tried to get through the barricades to his wife and the police wouldn't let him. He said he almost did bodily harm to a fire fighter. Once the storm passed, the room his wife was blocked and they had to cut their way to them and it would take a while. They could smell gas leaking and knew they had to get them out quickly. This man was helpless. His wife was in trouble and he couldn't save her. The police gave him a can of spray paint and told him to check the cars in the parking lot for dead people. He marked them with an x once they'd been cleared. He talked about how the only thing that he could do for his wife was pray and put her into the care of Heavenly Father...

Sister Ford's Story:

Our first appointment was at 2 o'clock with a less active member and her friend who live in Pekin. We showed up and when we got out of the car it was very calm and quiet, no wind at all and the air was very humid. As we walked up to the house I told Sis. Wood, "This feels like tornado weather." I was having Georgia flashbacks and I think I made Sis. Wood a little nervous cause she's from Cali and has never been in tornado country.. .. the weather channel was on. We knew there was a storm headed our way but the reporters kept predicting that it was going to go South of us. So for the time being we ignored the weather and while we ate we began to teach ...the Plan of Salvation... Then just as I gave her a BOM and challenged her to read it all the power went out. TV, computer, lights, and everything and it started to pour down rain. Sis. Wood and I were instantly nervous and all the dogs kept prancing around anxiously. But [they] didn't seem bothered so we kept talking for about five min.

Then it suddenly started to hail. GIANT hail. Bigger than I've ever seen. And that's when I looked down at our phone and realized we had like ten voicemails and missed calls and several txt messeges. They all said things like, "Get in a basement! It's right over you guys! Are you alive?" etc. So I really started to get nervous then and Sis. Wood looked like a deer in the headlights. So we asked XXXX if we shouldn't go in the basement. But she said, "Oh no, I mean you can if you want but I don't think we have anything to worry about. It's not close to us." So then of course Sis. Wood and I felt stupid so we didn't go downstairs.

Then it just stopped hailing and was quiet. The wind and rain stopped and everything. It stayed like that for about five min and then the hail started up again. We just sat and watched it through the windows. Meanwhile, our phone doesn't have any service so I can't call or txt anyone. Then after about fifteen min it all stopped and the sun came out again. We waited a little longer to make sure it had really blown over and thanked them both and left.

Sis. Wood started txting people back that we were okay while I drove. We had driven about 2 blocks when we turned onto the road that led down to the highway. That's when Sis. Wood was like, "I don't remember there being a junk yard over there." I looked to where she was pointing and was just as confused as she was. Then we got closer and I realized what we were seeing and Sis. Wood and I both gasped. I don't think I've ever had such a shock go through me. Across the highway from where we were everything was completely destroyed. What looked like a junkyard had actually been a neighborhood of trailers. They were tossed around like twigs. A huge building that had been standing an hour before had it's foundation facing us. We had to drive around trees and powerlines just to get to the highway. There were poilce cars and flashing lights everywhere.

I stopped the car and we both just sat and stared for several minutes. It was the most horrific, incredible thing I have ever seen. It looked like something out of an end of the world movie. Sis. Wood just kept saying, "It was less than a mile away from us and we didn't even know." I honestly just couldn't say anything.

Once I kinda got ahold of myself I drove around a tree and a news car and started heading back towrds Salem. I think I only drove 20 miles an hour the whole way. Ambulances and police kept zooming past us headed the other way. That's when I had Sis. Wood start calling everyone I knew who lived in Pekin, investigators and members. They were all okay but we could only txt cause there was no service.

I drove over to the XXXXXs, this older couple who are like grandparents, and we parked in front of their house. Before we went in we said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for protecting us when we didn't even know we were in danger and asked him to help those who were. Both of us were crying by then. I think we were both in shock. We went inside and stayed with the XXXXXs for a few hours, trying to calm down. No one knew how bad it was or what was going on cause the tv and phones were all out. So we ended up going to a member's house who we knew had cable and watched the news there. That's when we found out there had actually been two tornadoes that went through Pekin and that Henryville and Maryville had also been hit really bad. Both of which are in Sis. Wood's area so she was freaking out. We were worried about Sis. Nelson and Sis. Noakes cause we knew they had an appointment in Henryville. We were only able to get a txt from them saying they were okay. All the other missionaries in our District were okay too. Come to find out they were at a house in Henryville and the members told them to leave cause a tornado was coming so they did. And an hour later that house they were in was gone. The family was okay but their house was totally destroyed.

So after watching the news for several hours we went home at about 8:30. It was one of the strangest most surreal days ever. Yet another thing I never even fathomed experiencing on my mission. Well ever really.

But that night as I said my prayers and thanked Heavenly Father again for keeping us and my loved ones safe, I got the strongest impression that it was because of the many prayers that had been offered in my behalf by my friends and family at home...

So due to the devastation the last four or five days have been almost completely devoted to helping clean up and help those who were affected by the tornado. Saturday we helped cut down trees and clean up debris at a member's house in Charlestown. His yard was completely destroyed. Half his home was crushed by a tree and his barn collapsed. You could literally see the path the tornado had torn through his yard and the surrounding area.

Elder Everett and a canine friend

Elder Gardner and Elder Seegmiller

Elder Gardner, Elder Everett, Elder N. Johnson, and Elder Seegmiller

Elder Everett

Elder Gardner

Elder Everett and Elder Gardner

Sister Wood

Elder Edwards

Elder Seegmiller and Elder Gardner

Going out to serve (See previous post for names)

Then on Sunday we volunteered at a Methodist Church in Pekin that had set up a shelter of sorts where people could donate supplies and food. It felt good to be able to help and I couldn't believe the amount of donations from all over. Friday night we actually helped unload a bunch of supplies from Church Headquarters. It was so crazy to be on the receiving end of those things that I have only ever helped package.

Sister Ford and Sister Nelson

Containers of supplies that had already arrived from our Church

On Sunday morning we only had sacrament meeting because everyone in the Stake was being enlisted to help. It was one of the most spiritual fast and testimony meetings I have ever been too. One of the people who spoke was actually a lady in our ward who was in the Henryville High School when it was hit. The roof was torn off and it's nearly all destroyed. She was hiding under a table holding a little boy in her arms. Luckily all the children had been let out early and there were only thirty people inside. She and her husband both bore their testimonies and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Her husband is a very large man and he was in tears while he described how the fireman and police wouldn't let him into Henryville when he knew his wife was in there. It was amazing to listen too. Then for the closing song we sang "Where Can I Turn For Peace?" and I just balled...