At Least They're Committed

When the sirens went off, we gathered our cell phones and nothing else and quickly made our way to the basement. The smell was dank and the darkness foreboding as we huddled together, awaiting our fate as the rain and hail pelted the windows upstairs and the wind and thunder rolled like wrath ever nearer to the house.

Oh, wait. That’s not what happened at all. Sitting on the lanai with my mother, I clapped and cheered as the rain came straight down in sheets, met by the occasional 1-inch ball of hail bouncing off the grass and knocking the evergreen branches to life, arms swaying as they seemed to walk toward us. The lightning flashed on all sides, a spectacular light show in contrast to gray-black skies. The power went out, and I giggled. “If everyone has their own personal heaven,” I called to my mom against the din of the storm, “this would be mine. I’m in heaven.”

But it wasn’t rolling thunder, of course, it was a tornado tearing a path of destruction on the opposite side of the house, starting less than a mile away. More than a dozen homes had been reduced to kindling and more than 100 more lost their roofs, their second stories and, for many, their life treasures.

With the power outage, the phones did not work and it wasn’t until Uncle Mark’s cell went off that we realized what had hit us. “What? A tornaaaado,” Aunt Linda said, adding, “Well, we’d better still get our pizza!” We’d ordered it an hour before. It never came. The pizza place had lost its roof. I received a text from D, simply saying, “Are you safe?” We’d evidently made national news.

Uncle Mark enlisted the generator and we watched in awe as the news reports showed photos and videos of the destruction, so close, so close, so much lost with the exception, thank God, of lives.

It was Thursday, March 15, that Dexter was blown away and now as I drive through the town blue tarps dot the skyline, makeshift roofs as people and the community continue to bond together to rebuild their town. Pink chunks of insulation sway in the trees and piles of debris await collection. Reclamation is well under way.

Folks here are close-knit and eager to help, as I got to be witness to volunteering Saturday, March 17, at Operation Barbecue Relief. Aunt Patti, sweet cousin Chase and I spent her birthday standing in a catering trailer, hands encased in plastic gloves, tearing through bags of buns, scooping up piping hot burgers and hot dogs, assembling and wrapping and stacking them in aluminum bins as Salvation Army and fire department reps drove through to haul hundreds upon hundreds of lunches to relief workers and the families whose houses had been damaged. Once in a while, weary couples and children would wander in and we fed them. As the hours passed, the pulled pork dinner entrees were close to fruition and more volunteers packed in. Our time was up, and we headed home, hands burning and feet aching and hearts forever grateful for the opportunity to help out in some small way.

I’d arrived in Dexter to surprise Patti two hours before the storm hit. And as we three drove back to Aunt Linda’s that Saturday, Aunt Patti said again, “Never in my life would I have believed that I’d spend my birthday, shoulder to shoulder with you, prepping food as part of a tornado relief effort.” Agreed. The twists and turns that life hands us will never cease to blow me away.