As much as I don't want to talk about this, I know I have to. I know I have to get out everything I saw the evening of April 27, 2011. So here it goes.
At 3:30 pm on April 27, I was in the Alpha Chi house working on a final project for one of my classes. The semester was drawing to a close and I was swamped with exams, projects, and presentations.
4:00 pm- My fiance calls, "Hey babe, I just got off work because the weather is supposed to get bad."
"Oh okay, I really don't think its going to get bad like the weathermen are saying. I mean, there is nothing on the radar for Tuscaloosa. I think its all south of us."
"Yeah, your probably right. I think I am going to go to the gym for a bit and get a workout in then we can hang out."
"Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, the sirens will probably go off and then they're just going to keep you in there for no reason."
"Thats true, I'll just come get you and we will go out to my house and hang out."
5:00 pm- I am at my fiance's house, talking with my mom on the phone, when I heard the sirens. I told my fiance to turn the TV on. An image of the twister ripping through Tuscaloosa stared us back in the face. Not sure what to do, or which direction it was going, we just stared at the TV in shock. Soon after, the power went out and a train-like sound grew louder and louder. Thomas's house did not truly have a safe place to go for a tornado. About 2 minutes before the tornado hit, his neighbor came over and told us to get in the basement. I ran from house to house. I remember standing in the yard and seeing the tornado. I mean, it was right there in front of me. Probably the distance of a football field away. I don't know how the wind did not suck me into the storm. I remember the wind being unbelievably strong. I fought my way into the neighbors house, and ran down the basement stairs, Thomas and his roommate following behind me.
It was over in about 10 seconds, and an eery, calm sound replaced the raging train of before. We walked out of the neighbors house, and this is what we saw:
My fiance's house. Where we would have been during the storm.
The neighborhood. After the storm, we ran through all of the neighbors houses to make sure no
one was injured.
This is University Blvd, in Alberta City immediately after the storm. We immediately ran through these neighborhoods doing search and rescue. It is difficult to see, but further down than the picture shows, victims were laying down in the streets, fighting for their lives. The screams and cries I heard in this moment, I will never forget.
This is looking down into the area of major destruction. This street was where we found an elderly couple. The man was critically injured. I found the wife dead.
More pictures of my fiance's neighborhood.
Pictures nor words can describe what I experienced that evening. I have been struggling with why God chose for me to live, and why so many poverty-stricken people lost everything. Why didn't the storm choose me? I am fortunate to have my friends unharmed. But my heart and my grieving are with the citizens of Alberta City. I don't know why God allows these things to happen. I get so angry when I think about all the innocent people I helped find their family members. They don't deserve this destruction, the heart break.
To this day, I can still hear the sirens in my head. I can still see the face of the elderly woman dead, the young lady with her leg completely off, the baby found in the rubble, the teenage boy convulsing in the street with his family screaming for help. The eerie sunset that settled over the crumbled city of Alberta. The ambulances trying to get to the victims, the policemen running to me for help. The middle aged man trying to find his cousin, telling me his nickname was "Bossman" while I yelled it out and lifted up what used to be the walls of his living room, searching for any clues that a man once lived there.
I don't know what God was thinking when he just let this happen. But I do remember feeling His presence in that moment. He gave me the strength to endure those hours.
The night prior to the tornado, I read Mark 4:35-41. It is the passage of when Jesus calms the storm with his disciples. I can remember thinking about how powerful storms, and natural disasters are, and how God controls all of them. I used to always think of weather as the closest thing we can compare to the power of God. Even the storms and winds obey the Lord. God was preparing my heart and I didn't even realize it.
Two nights after the storm, my fiance and I were talking about everything, trying to make sense of it all. And I don't think we can make sense of it. I found myself only believing in God, because if I don't believe in Him, I have nothing else to believe in, and no hope for anything. Sometimes I think faith comes down to that. Believing, because there is nothing else that makes sense.
