A mobile home park resident tells you that God answers prayers. A preacher tells you he plans to pass the plate around Sunday. Others tell you the sorrow of losing loved ones or property. Their stories also tell you they survived and they plan to carry on.
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STILL SEARCHING
RINGGOLD
Two family members dead, three missing
Stan White looked at an overturned sports utility vehicle, a large red X slashed through the white paint. He closed his eyes.
“That’s Chelsea’s car,” he whispered.
White’s first cousin, Chris Black, and his daughter, Chelsea, were among the victims of the monster tornado that hit Ringgold. Their bodies had been found, but Black’s wife, Pamela; son, Cody; and baby daughter nicknamed “BB” had not.
“[They] could be anywhere,” White said, his eyes heavy.
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PASS THE PLATE
BARTOW COUNTY
Minister of 106-year-old church keeps the faith
The Rev. Ronnie Cline of the Church of the Covenant sat under a tent in the parking lot that fronts the stone foundation where his little 106-year-old church used to stand. He and other church members had tables piled with food, water and supplies to give to those in the community. Cline said his congregation of 80 or so in Bartow County plans to worship in the parking lot Sunday morning at 11. Asked if would take up an offering, Cline laughed and said: “Yep. I may pass the plate twice this Sunday.”
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TREE THREATENS HOME
ALTON, TENN.
Everyone says they’re coming — but when?
A tree as large as a building leans against Sharkethia Porter’s back porch railing. If it splits completely and breaks the rail, the tree will come through the back bedroom of her home in Alton, Tenn., she said.
“The insurance adjusters say they’re coming. The city says they’re coming. The Electric Power Board says they’re coming. Everybody says they’re coming. They just don’t know when they’re going to get here,” Porter said.
“The good thing is we have no place else to go, so we’ll be here, too.”
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SUNNY SIDE
RV company hopes for government assistance
“I got here around 3 on Thursday morning and saw that one out in the middle of [U.S.] 19/41,” Sunny Side RV general manager George Smith said, pointing at a balled-up hunk of white metal pushed alongside the road that once was a pull-behind camper.
Sunny Side RV had been in business on U.S. 19/41 for eight months. Friday, 15 trailers, campers and RVs averaging $155,000, as well as a yacht, were strewn about the lot. Each one had been tumbled about, torn through or flattened.
“I don’t have any inventory,” owner Jason Miller said. But the business was surviving, taking on two RV repair jobs Friday.
“We’re going to try to stay open,” Smith said.
And recovery? “Hopefully, the finance company will work with us a little while,” Miller said. “And FEMA and GEMA will help.”
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WEDDING GIFTS
FORSYTH
Family searches for rings, family pet
Family and friends of a Forsyth couple say they’ve been digging through the rubble in hopes of finding two rings that were supposed to be exchanged at the couple’s upcoming wedding. The Telegraph of Macon reported that Chris Landers and Cristi Mercer are planning a July 23 wedding. They say they haven’t found the rings yet in the debris of what was their home on Weldon Road in northern Monroe County.
Chris’ father, Steve Landers, fought back tears as he described the search. He said he also wants to find Tag, the couple’s white puppy with brown spots who has been missing since the storm struck early Thursday morning. About 10 people in Monroe County were hurt, but no deaths were reported in the county.
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THOUGHTS OF DEATH
BARNESVILLE
Closet, friend’s text likely save teacher’s life
Teacher Victoria Mattox, 29, was asleep in Barnesville when a friend texted her at 12:42 a.m. Thursday telling her the sirens were going off in town. She leapt from bed and made it to her closet seconds before she felt her house shaking under battering winds. Windows popped out in the adjoining bedroom and then the ceiling peeled off above her head.
Within seconds, it was over and the closet where she had hunkered down was the only part of the house left standing, a large tree uprooted and arched over it.
“I had called my father,” near Knoxville [Ga.], “and I just told him I loved him and I was going to die because I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she said.
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CUTS AND BRUISES
SPALDING COUNTY
Girl whipped from room helps with cleanup
The Peavy family of Spalding County was recovering Friday after a tornado ripped apart their home.
Joe Peavy, whose sleeping daughter was whipped from her bedroom, said the family members were healing after they suffered bruises and cuts from the flying debris. The daughter, Kylie, 13, was helping clean up the property, collecting what was salvageable from the storm.
The family is staying at the home of another family member, and the insurance company has already helped them obtain a rental car.
“Everybody is healing nicely,” Peavy said. “We’re just looking to get our house rebuilt and move on.”
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PRAYER ANSWERED
SUNNYSIDE
Trailer falls to ground after a call for help
Joe Isham was asleep in his trailer in the Ponderosa Mobile Home park in the Sunny Side community when the twister hit. When he was jolted awake, “the trailer was floating in the air,” he recalled Friday. “I felt the floor tilting one way, then the other. I yelled, ‘Lord, help us,’ and the trailer slammed back to the ground.” The underside of his single-wide was pushed up into the rest of the trailer, but Isham survived.
So, too did a man, a woman and 1-year-old baby whose nearby trailer was pancaked by the force of the winds.
“You look around at all the devastation, and it’s amazing that most people walked out with only scratches and bruises,” Isham said Friday.
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MEMORIES AMONG RUBBLE
CARTERSVILLE
Family discovers lost box of Christmas cards
It took a tornado to unearth the packet of Christmas cards Cristina Williams mislaid last December. She had put the cards — featuring photos of son Kohl and daughter Abigail — in envelopes and addressed them ready for mailing, but somehow they disappeared.
Friday, she, her husband, John, and other family members scoured several acres of ground, picking up a photo here, a toy there among the rubble of their home in the Crowe Springs community just outside Cartersville. The debris looked as if it all had been put through a shredder, but there were the cards, soaked but intact.
Cristina’s mother, Clara McCrary, carefully took the cards out of their damp envelopes and put them in a plastic bin.
“There’s not much left to save,” said her husband, Freddy McCrary, as Clara put the lid on the bin.
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CLINIC DOCUMENTS
KNOXVILLE
Winds blow personal information miles away
Geologist Terry Davis lives on a ridge near downtown Knoxville. After the storms passed, he found a document in his driveway.
It was a mammogram from a clinic about 110 miles away, Chattanooga Imaging.
“I should let this lady know that personal information ... is scattered from there to Knoxville — and maybe further? — but I doubt they have phone, e-mail or even power now,” Davis said.
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BIRD NESTS REMOVED
DUNLAP, TENN.
Siren back in working condition just in time
It was only a couple of months ago when Dunlap, Tenn., Mayor Dwain Land received a Facebook post asking what happened to the town siren that alerted people when something bad was going to happen.
Land said he went to the fire department to investigate whether the siren still worked and discovered bird nests in it. After cleaning out the nests, the siren still worked.
On Wednesday, the siren rang out throughout the day, warning people of the waves of storms about to hit town.
