Tornado Stories

My students wrote about their April 27 experiences and after reading them all, I chose a few sentences that stuck out in my mind. These are 8th graders and all will stay anonymous.

"My cousin called my mom and gave us the horrifying news that my aunt had passed away in the storm. Before the storm came she asked my uncle to go and get all of her wind chimes off of the porch, as soon as he stepped outside the wind knocked him off and he crawled under the truck remaining safe. My aunt however was not. She was thrown out of a window 200 yards from her house and crushed by a tree. My aunt was a great woman and just thinking about her having to go through that really tears me up."

"That's all we need in the world. For people to help people when they need it. Most people don't even care if somebody needs help or someone to talk to. They just walk away like ntohing has happened. This just shows you that there are still good people in the world. You just need to find them."

"That next day, April 28th, we went around and checked on our family and saw all of the destruction. I was honestly very scared, actually, this experience made me believe in God more than I had before."

"Nothing happened to our house, but the power was out for five days. I saw a bunch of homes that were destroyed. Some people that I knew died. I went to four funerals from Saturday to Tuesday."

"I heard the tornado hit the house. You could smell trees. I thought a tree hit us. I looked around and saw insulation everywhere. Rain was hitting us. Nana was going to see what happened and walked two steps up the stairs and told us the roof was gone. J called her friends to see if he could help us. He and his dad cut through trees and fences to get to us."

"After the storms I was glad to see all of the people helping the people that had something happen. I didn't really think that Bradley County was like that."

The kids have been slowly returning to normal as much as they can and our city continues to work hard in the recovery. Instead of having to hear stories on the news I just ask those around me and it all comes to life. Such a different perspective now.