Final Tornado post

Soon they told all of us in White Hall to move to the PAC. We stayed together as the group we had formed in White Hall (which also happened to be a group of close friends). As we walked over we saw many blown over tress and broken windows, but the sights were much less unnerving than the other buildings we saw and the blood covered students. When we entered the PAC, another makeshift nursing station was set up. As we proceeded down the hall, they informed us we would be staying at different faculty members’ homes, so Becca called her parents and told them we wanted to stay there. We again had to sign a sheet and put our cell phone number down and they told us to sit and wait. Knowing that the Poes were going to pick us up, we moved closer to the Chapel where they were loading cars full of people to send them away for the night. Tyler and Bob went to find their car (which they drove in from their house off campus). When we were waiting by the Chapel, we heard a voice call out for Becca Poe; somehow, Josh had found her among 1200 other students. Danielle was also able to find her sister. As we were waiting, a group going to Humboldt came by, at which point Sarah gave me my computer and Kyle Jones's also. We made it out to the Poe's and called home and watched the news. We also used my laptop to get on wi-fi, and people were able to facebook it up and use email. We had some coffee and had a prayer time which was great and helped us deal with some of the stress, shock, awe, and horror. I called my parents, and no knowing if I would be able to get into my room or if my car was ok, told/asked them to drive down the next morning and pick me up. When we were sitting around, Amanda Johnson called and asked if any of us knew how to contact Kevin Bradley's parents. Mrs. Poe knew Mrs. Bradley, and using what she knew of them and facebook and the White pages online, we were able to find their phone number. We then went to sleep, or tried to, five guys downstairs (we lost Bob) and around 10 or 11 girls upstairs (we lost Kirby). When we got up, we had pancakes (because Becca's sister Mary Ellen wanted them), and it sounded good to all of us. We walked around and got kicked off of campus, and then tried to enjoy ourselves until we were able to get back on campus (well, only Kyle, Austin, and I were able to get on campus), and we got our stuff and our cars and went back to the Poe's. On campus, we were given five minutes to pack our rooms with whatever we could carry. Soon after getting back, my parents came and picked me up. It was a miraculous show of God's providence and mercy that everyone is ok. As Dr. David S. Dockery said, "Out of the rubble comes renewal." Union and its leadership have done a great job in leading after this disaster, and as Sen. Corker said, we have inspired the nation.

Tornado Pt. 2

They described the sight: glass everywhere, stuff from near the door scattered everywhere inside. John left the bathroom and told us to stay there and nobody leave for any reason. We were still sitting in the dark checking up on the weather online (Wi-fi was still working somehow) and someone (I think Matt Reeves) was talking to his dad about the weather coming through and the damage that already occurred when we heard someone in the commons yell "Courtney! Courtney!" Hearing the name of his fiance, J-Mo flipped and ran out the door fearing that Courtney (Nute) was injured from being in the main room of the Commons. He returned to the bathroom and was calming down and told us they were just calling to her because she was a nursing student. He said a guy and a girl (who we later learned were not Union students) came into the Commons from a car. Jonathan said she was so cut up and bloody in her face that she was unrecognizable. We again started praying aloud. In the next few minutes we heard a lot of yelling as Ashley Jackson (Residence Director) and the RAs herded girls from one of the buildings (Grey? maybe) into the stairwells because there was a gas leak. With a lot of yelling they got them in there. At some point in the time that followed and ambulance arrived for the bloody girl. We were still sitting in the dark bathroom and John and J-Mo reported on how bad things were. Flipped cars were the main report so far, and they were saying it was worse than the reports we got about 2002. We sent out text messages to our family and emails as we could to try and let our parents know we were all right, but AT&T was not working real well at all. Some amount of time after the tornado they began to yell to all of us in the Commons that we needed to head toward the Pennick Academic Complex (PAC). We still hadn't seen anything first hand. As I stepped out of the bathroom all I noticed was that the commons had stuff everywhere, most notably Ashley Jackson's business cards, which had flown everywhere. We went out of the Commons toward the courtyard. I set down my notebook on the copier as we walked out. I honestly don't remember if there was a door as we walked out. The sight that met us was much worse than any of us had expected. It was dark, so we couldn't see well, but our eyes had already adjusted from being in the bathroom with no power. We saw Grey and Dodd when we first walked out, and we could see pretty clearly that the walls had fallen off the sides of the buildings. As we walked further we could see through windows that some sections of roof were completely missing. We could see parts of buildings in which only the frame was left. It looked like a set to a natural disaster movie, but it was real. It was all so real. As we walked toward the PAC, Sarah Simpson joined Austin and I walking. All the girls began to cry as we walked over the rubble in McAfee. The sights that would soon greet us were much worse. When we exited the courtyard we could see, backdropped by the dark sky, trees which were split in half. As we walked further we saw a pile of cars, with a red Celica sticking up above the rest. My only response to this was "Holy crap." We walked out to the road and found cars sitting in the middle as well as trees littering the walkways. Then we saw Hurt.