I'm blogging this message to let you all know we are okay and everything in Calhoun is peachy. I feel guilty saying that. You see we had big storms, huge storms and we got... well, nothing.
Some wind, some rain, but ho hum.
For those of you who know me, you know I live in Calhoun GA. My town is about halfway between Atlanta Georgia and Chattanooga TN, and sits about 35 miles from one of the hardest hit areas in Georgia , Ringgold GA. All of the devastation that occurred as a result of the tornado's and severe thunderstorms on April 27,2011 is geographically all around me.
I could drive to every one of these areas including Tuscaloosa AL in a very few hours. I have friends or former co-workers that live in all these areas. The damage is beyond accurate description except to compare it to something else. When you see all the trees that are down, you think WOW, this looks like when Mt. St. Helen blew up and flattened the forest around it or maybe , I saw something that looked like this once when I saw an active logging camp in the forest. The damage is so severe it really doesn't have words of its own to describe it. I watch video with others and the room turns seriously quiet, no one can talk it is so absorbing. It is surreal. The only other time in my life I have ever saw anything that approaches this level of scary is Hurricane Katrina. I'll bet we have more damage and more totalled cars. I've never seen so many flying cars. I've been in every one the areas that have been shown on the videos and in the pictures.
I really don't recognize much of anything I see.
The damage in Ringgold looks more like a war zone than a vibrant industrial neighborhood. I've ate at most of the fast food restaurants in that area and none of them , not one of them, are serving food today, nor will they be for quite some time to come. Some will be fixed however the damage is so extensive that most will have to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Pretty much if it was at exit 348 on I-75 in Georgia, it ain't in business today, and neither is much of the historic 173 year old town. Taco Bell ? -Destroyed, 3 Story Super 8 motel ? - Flattened, cratered, destroyed. Every other business for about the next 2 miles ? - Flattened, crushed, imploded and thrown into the next state. Get outta here takes on a whole new meaning. You know those 125 foot tall highway signs that businesses have ? I saw one broke in half, on broke at the base on top of the restaurant it was advertising and another was wrapped double backwards against itself. The McDonald's sign? Well it just wasn't there any more and neither is the BP gas station, well technically the cement slab is still there, but that's all.
A good friend of mine lives one mile from ground zero in Ringgold. His truck got hit by a tree, his wife's arm was hurt, the power is out, he lost his food, they don't have water, but everything else survived without much damage. His kids school got destroyed, but his kids are fine. One mile away from ground zero, a quarter mile from some of the less severe damage and nothing. School however is cancelled, For the rest of the year, In every school, For about the next two years while they rebuild them. FW
Another one of my friends lost a window. One window. In the same town as completely flattened commercial buildings. At the tail end of another long run of another tornado, another friend lost power and had a tree come down in their front yard. Power is out for half a day. Yay !! One of my other friends lives in Bradley County TN and her son's home, cars, garage was destroyed , but the family was spared. Thank goodness !
The interstate highway is at a crawl if you can get through at all right now. Debris, before you ask. Enormous Mountains of debris. Hundreds of thousands of tons of debris. "Guardrails ripped from the ground , wrapped around the bridge pillars like bow tie pasta". FW (my favorite cursing words) . Forget going to Chattanooga right now.
Hundreds of thousands of others were not so lucky. And trust me, we all know we were lucky and dodged a bullet Wednesday night. Atlanta should be thanking God that it turned right and left and didn't carve a path through downtown. Can you imagine the number of dead if this thing had went into the heart of Atlanta ?
In Tennessee, (she'd be embarrassed and pissed off if I mentioned her by name so I won't) where my best friends lives, folks died right down the street from her, maybe even literally next door. She lived through the Movie Twister and somehow even though there was gargantuan destruction all around her, she was spared, and her house was spared. Thank God for that. I saw the weather map, and where it was hitting , and I know she had to have been scared cause I was praying to god she would be okay. She said "I feel lucky, but don't know why I am alive."
Me ? Hell, I'm just glad you are alive to wonder that.
I saw the footage.
I still can't believe it.
How many people would even want to tell anybody they lived through (probably) an F-5 tornado ? It was definitely an F-4 and they are saying it may have been an F-5 by the time it hit her area. And then have to deal with the survivors guilt and the amazing amount of stress it has to create ? I'm glad for her, and was overjoyed to finally hear her voice. Oh and by the way, her son should get a medal for being able to get to her and get her out of that hell on earth. Way to MR !! Every son would do what he did I think, but he actually did it !
In terms of getting through this, well, like a lot of things time and money will heal a lot of it. Nothing will replace the loved ones who died, but after a time we will grow to accept it and move to pick up the pieces of our lives and go about making our fortunes in this world once again.
In terms of perspective however, we have lived through History and my friend who lived through the F-5 tornado can now tell people she survived one of the most destructive storms and one of the highest wind speeds ever recorded in North America. In 1974 Hurricane Carmen struck the USA and was rated a Category 4 storm according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane scale . The highest wind speeds were around 150 mph with gusts in the range of about 170-175 mph. The experts think this tornado has winds in excess of 190 mph.
We had hundreds of tornado's. F-1's through F-5's all in one day.
I've enclosed some links, YouTube links and a link to some pictures.
http://www.tornadoproject.com/fscale/fscale.htm
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150178317618469.330602.759223468
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdNVq5PPq5c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkhqFk_QA7s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Se3es3l7o&sns=fb
Is it OK if we go back to normal now ?
- BigMike
