vituperation

October 19, 2002

…continued

At about 4:15 on that Wednesday this author’s father, Jim, decided the weather looked like it was going to get pretty rough. As someone who’d spent almost his entire life living in the South’s "Tornado Alley", he knew bad storm cells when he saw them.

Jim worked on Redstone Arsenal as a civilian, as the chief of the Personnel Department. He was at work when he noticed the rolling clouds, and immediately decided to leave work early to try and get home before the storm got really bad. He told everyone in his office that things looked like they were about to get bad, and advised them that they might want to consider going home.

Ultimately, most of the people in the office stayed there, but one worker - LeRoy - decided to go home too. LeRoy decided to take his normal route home, up Memorial Parkway and across Airport Road. He was sitting in traffic, stopped at the red light at the intersection of the two roads, when the tornado crossed in front of him. As he tells it, after the tornado passed he was the fifth or sixth car in line on the road. Originally, he’d been considerably further back in line, but now the rest of the line in front of him was gone.

Though Jim would have normally been sitting at that same intersection, he decided to take a different route home. To him it looked like he could stay away from the storm by leaving the Arsenal at its extreme southern gate by the Tennessee River and circling south Huntsville through the Bailey Cove area. Traffic was light through Bailey Cove and Jim made good time, keeping a wary eye on the approaching storm.

From the southwestern side of the storm cell containing the tornado, Jim saw nothing but darkness and huge balls of lightning as he turned out of Bailey Cove and into Jones Valley. He raced down the narrow and twisting Garth Road in his Jetta, breaking speeds of 80 miles per hour and passing every car he came upon. When he blew by Jones Valley Elementary School, it was still standing.

At the intersection of Drake Avenue and Garth Road there was a line of traffic stopped, all waiting to turn right. Since Jim needed to go straight across Drake, he cut his car into the left lane and raced up the wrong side of the road, blatting his horn and flashing his lights.

Death crossed Garth Road after destroying the elementary school and howled into Jones Valley subdivision, chewing up everything in its path. According to people there, Death sounded not like a freight train, but like a group of freight trains as it wound its way through the subdivision. Where man was the creator, Death was the uncreator.

While travelling through Jones Valley subdivision, Death claimed another person, a woman trying desperately to get into her house. People viewing the aftermath - this author included - recall seeing a muddy door and section of wall standing where the house used to be. Muddy, that is, except for the outline of a person in the doorway.

Jim crossed Drake Avenue, ignoring the stop sign, and raced up Huntsville Mountain to his street. As he drove up to his house, he noticed the porch light turning on and off quickly, a message from his wife that something bad was right behind him.

So he stopped at the mailbox to pick up the mail, explaining to this author that if the mailbox was going to get blown away he didn’t want his mail to go with it. That comment tells this author many things about why this author is the way he is.

Jim drove up his driveway and into the garage. When he got out of the car, his wife was waiting for him with a fearful hug. The garage in Jim’s house extends under the entire house, and is part garage, part workroom, part basement. As such, Jim keeps a phone there, and this phone rang suddenly. Jim answered it.

"Hello?" he said.

"Dad? Are y’all okay?" the voice of Jim’s son, Fred, came across the line.

"So far, but it’s not here yet," Jim said, "Call me back in five minutes and see if we’re still here."

Jim hung up the phone and hit the button to lower the garage door. Halfway down, the door suddenly stopped as the neighborhood lost power.

With the scream of a thousand demons, Death whirled onto Jim’s street.

to be continued…