Tornado, Pt. 3 of 5 (I think)

There seemed to be a gasp as every individual saw Hurt, with the ends of the buildings collapsing. As we were walking, a National Guardsman with a chainsaw approached the guys he saw walking and told us that eight guys were trapped in Watters, and asked us to come help. I handed my computer to Sarah and we started off to Watters. Katie Kulow and Sarah asked us frantically where they were supposed to go, and we told them to keep moving and go to the PAC. When we were walking to Watters, we began to see even more of the damage. When we looked to ward Hurt, all we saw was rubble. We slogged through the mud and were quite tempted to run. The guardsman told us to conserve our energy, we would need it and there was no telling how long we would be out there. As we walked up to Watters we could see the end of the Commons building by the light of numerous emergency response vehicles. It looked as if that end had been burned and stripped and then we saw the truth, that there was only about 10 feet left of the building still standing, the rest was in a pile of rubble. We followed the guardsman over some rubble to near where a firefighter was trying to get a guy out from under the rubble. The guardsman told us to wait for something to do, so Kyle, Austin, a few others and I waited. We heard a voice from under the rubble of Watters Commons. I was later told it was probably Matt Taylor (which he later confirmed), yelling "Get me out of here!" His voice had a blood curdling tone and was full of fear. The firefighter calling for an airbag and telling him to "stay calm, we're getting you out, you will be ok." We were standing there, some emergency personnel telling us to wait to help lift people out, others telling us to get to White Hall. We kept standing there for a few minutes in the midst of the chaos until they started yelling for all students to go to White Hall while someone else yelled that there were enough emergency workers there already and they didn't need anymore help. So Austin, Kyle, and I decided we would head over to White Hall as they told us to, though we wished they had let us stay and help.

I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by Lynne Spears’s book, Through the Storm: A Real Story of Fame and Family in a Tabloid World. I really did not know what to expect coming into the book, though I had heard rumors about “Britney’s mom’s book about parenting.” What I didn’t expect was something that was present throughout the book: an account of her faith and trust in God, and not just any God, but Jesus Christ. I was skeptical while reading through most of the book, she said a lot of vague things about faith in God, but things started sinking in with words like “providence,” “redemption,” and finally the phrase “Christ our savior.” She surprised me with an apparently deep faith that I knew nothing about before reading Through the Storm. Really, that is part of what the story is about. Lynne Spears has an abiding faith in God, even though her family went through a “storm.” She often appeals to the image of a “whirlwind” of fame and its ramifications, and if there was not already a book by Tim Ellsworth about the tornadoes at Union University with the title God in the Whirlwind, it would be an appropriate title for this book. Lynne Spears presents a picture of her family, faults and all, with fame tearing it apart in some instances, yet her faith remains steady. Her faith is the stabilizing factor in her life. While I had trouble reading the book, my issue with it was not content, but the stream of thought organization. Really, I read theology more than anything else, so this book is much different and in many ways hard for me to follow. But it was casual and good for what it was, her story, and many people that are prone to judge the Spears family should read this book. This book opens your eyes to see the character of the members of her family, the effect fame has had on them, and the regrets she has for letting fame take control and letting her own control slip away. Let this be the basis for judging Lynne’s character, not the tabloids.