I normally avoid writing about my personal life. But in order to show the spirit of our community, I feel an anecdote is necessary. A few weeks ago, a tornado tore through Newton County in the area just outside of Union. I was driving home that Sunday night when my sister called me about the tornado; the tornado had struck my house. This tornado appeared to have tracked across my road and up my driveway, snapping the tops off of large pine trees and uprooting several others. By some miracle, the tornado missed my house but uprooted several more pine trees on the wooded trail behind my house. The tornado also caused significant damage to the houses on Highway 489. The tornado was one of many that occurred across the state that Sunday, and we had some good people helping us deal with the aftermath.
The National Weather Service rated this tornado as an EF1 tornado, and on the following day, we were able to assess the tornado damage. An enormous pine tree had fallen across our driveway, the top of another pine tree had fallen on top of my car (also causing slight damage to the roof of our house), debris had smashed the windshield of my truck, and several pine trees had been uprooted around my house. Power lines had also fallen into the trees. We had a long day of tornado cleanup ahead of us. The first obstacle for us to conquer was to remove the tree from the driveway. At first, we had no help; however, some of my family arrived shortly to begin the cleanup.
After making a short trip to town, several people had arrived to help with the cleanup as well as Southern Pine. The cleanup lasted all day, and although we made significant progress, the tornado had left so much debris that we could not clean everything up. Most of the fallen trees and tree limbs have either been pushed into the woods or pushed into a large pile in our side yard. However, none of this would have been possible without the help of some great people: Olivia Smith, Hollie Smith, Terry Smith, Joe Hennington, Amy Hennington, Hunter Hennington, Walker Hennington, Jason Hester, Seth Sessums, Cade Little, Scott Breedlove, and William Breedlove. These people were all instrumental in the cleanup efforts, and I would like to thank them all. This serves as just one example of how a community can come together in times of need.
We hear many stories about how communities and neighbors come together to help each other during times of need, and I have experienced this to be true. We count ourselves extremely lucky that nothing further was damaged, and we could not have managed the cleanup by ourselves. I was surprised when so many people showed up to help. I will be forever thankful for them and the help they provided, and as long as our community can always unite in times of need, we will always be able to meet any challenge that comes our way.
