Deadly storms in my life | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Deadly storms in my life | Previous Challenge Entry
By Robert Douglas Brown
10/09/14
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I was raised in Alabama in the 1960s in a community near Birmingham. It was a peaceful town where most folks knew each other. I gave my soul to Jesus when I was an 8 year-old boy in a small Baptist Church there.

From an early age, I remember being curious about weather. When I was 4-years old, I distinctively remember being grabbed by the collar and told to march down into basement. That basement scared me more than any werewolf, vampire, and any imaginary monster just waiting to snatch me up.

That day, an F-3 tornado went over our home and hit the valley about 2 miles north of my home and destroyed several homes resulting in the deaths of 12 people. That was in 1960.

I grew up in that community, and never experienced any extreme weather events over the 19 years I lived there.
In 1975, I moved to California and served in the US Coast Guard for a couple of years, and was honorably discharged after I completed my 2 years of service.

I came home and enrolled at Mississippi State University and completed my degree. Soon thereafter, I met my beautiful wife of 28 years, and relocated to Louisiana where I resided for 26 years.

The Lord blessed me with a fantastic job as the director of a computer network in a public school system in South Louisiana. My wife served as the Director of Special Education in the same school system. I retired in 2007 due to a serious health issue that I have dealt with for 11 years with the help of our Lord.
During our time there, we had several huge weather events over the years.

I remember riding out Hurricane Andrew and how thankful we were to have our home unharmed by a strong tornado that destroyed many homes just a mile from our home. In 2005, Katrina ravaged several parishes. We had over $15,000.00 in damages from Katrina. In 2012 Hurricane Isaac flooded over 300 homes in our former parish including our former home.

It seems as if everywhere we have lived, we have been just one step ahead of becoming a victim of weather related disasters. However, I know in my heart that the Lord had our back with each and every weather disaster over the years.

It seems as if it was yesterday, as any thought of this brings on pain and gratitude all wrapped up in one package that I think about most days.

It was April 27, 2011, a day of deadly weather that the southeastern region of the US had not seen in many decades. Tornadoes and severe thunder storms are not uncommon weather events in the south during springtime.

We were heading towards Birmingham, Alabama after spending a week in South Louisiana visiting my father-in-law and friends there.

When we left, the wind was gusty with an eerie pinkish gray sky. The closer we got to Alabama, the worse the skies looked. We made it to Meridian, Mississippi, and things looked very bad in the northeastern sky in the direction of Tuscaloosa. I wanted to make it to Tuscaloosa and get gas, but my wife insisted that we gas up in Meridian.

This decision could have saved our lives. I know the Lord was protecting us that day, as he has so many times in our lives.
We made it to Tuscaloosa and what we saw was something that I will never forget. We dodged trees, power lines, and many, branches that had just been deposited by the tornado. I looked to our left, and saw an angry, massive, black tornado devouring anything unfortunate enough to be in its path.

With the Lords protection, we made it through Tuscaloosa. About 50 miles north of Tuscaloosa was the town where I had grown up. I had not been there in 7 years, and wanted to see it.

We exited off the Interstate and drove about a mile. To our left was another dark tornado destroying my hometown. I immediately told Diane to turn around and get back on the highway. We just missed the 2nd tornado by 2 minutes.

That day, 40% of all homes in my hometown were destroyed with 9 deaths. Tuscaloosa had about the same in property loss, but suffered the loss of 12 lives there. I know this is not your typical autobiography, but that day defined my life forever. The Lord had our backs that day, and still does.

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