Today marks the 9
th anniversary of the great Cincinnati Tornado.
Not great as in
good, but "great" as in, at it's heightened intensity, the twister ranked as an F4 on the
Fujita scale. Which is the second most
devastating storm ranking...wind speeds of 207–260 mph, and generally just leveling most everything in its path. If I may quote the Weather Service, this size
behemoth amounts to "devastating damage; Well-constructed houses leveled; structures with weak foundations blown away some distance; cars thrown and large missiles generated." That's a lot of breeze blowing around
This was just part of an incredible 54
tornadoes produced throughout the
Midwest since the day before. This one touched down just west of
Interstate 71, in the Blue Ash and Montgomery area at around 5 a.m., on April 9
th, 1999. The tornado was nearly a quarter-mile wide...killing 4 people, and causing nearly $25million in damages, flattening homes, businesses, and
livelihoods in it's wake.
I say all this, not to appear as some sort of news reporter and re-state ad
nauseum a story you can Google or
Wikipedia and find more detailed and specific accounts. I'm not posting as tribute, nor historical account. Just one man's hopefully respectful memory of that moment. It matters to me more so as this tornado hurled itself right through my apartment building, which is what makes it sorta more than just a "
hmm and a
headnod" to me when I hear about it.
I awoke to distant sirens blaring, like a kind of rising inflection that some people make when making a statement, but phrasing like a question. Still in a sleepy haze, my first irrational reaction was anger...hitting an alarm clock that wasn't going off and thinking, "Why are they testing sirens this early in the morning?"
Then I heard the wind. Almost like a blender being hit on randomly violent speeds, alternating furious and calm at the same time. Tree limbs brushing frenetically against the side of the brick, and I knew they couldn't reach that far in a normal bend.
Then it got
really windy. Remarkably so.
In my haze, I grabbed the
TV remote...Hmmm...must be getting ready to rain this morning. Channel 9 always had a station devoted to just an area weather radar, and my first instinct was to look.
Hmmm...I don't think
I've ever seen the whole radar represented as one
giant red mass over the entire city before. I blinked again to focus. That doesn't seem like it should be so. Uh oh.
A huge bay window sat parallel to the bed, and my analytical prowess quickly assessed and assured me that perhaps I should move away. Instinctively, I jumped up and hid in the bath tub. Laying there, wondering if I should have maybe brought a pillow. I was on the ground level, and my mind was a blur of
imagery: visions of what I would do against
potential falling concrete, the window imploding and sending massive shards down the hall and around the corner right to me, just like a cartoon...all 800 of my
CDs, probably ending up blowing across the Ohio River....wonderful. I was probably lying there no longer than a minute before she hit,just below the edge of the tub, grabbing onto the bottom of the shower curtain in case I needed a quick shield (although it could have been a roll of paper towels - or more appropriately the toilet paper - but I wasn't moving any farther than I could breathe - I didn't care, I was holding on to anything). In the time leading up to impact, I think I was assessing how nice it would be to have a reassuring countdown voice to impact...something soothing, and "
ahh" inspiring, not like the harsh NASA robotic bleating...and how long it would take me to find the video camera...power up, load, maybe find a blank tape...wow, it'd be cool to run outside and film the tail end of it...I think everyone wonders what their last thought would be, facing impending death. Weird/ sad that I just thought of the Wizard. Or running outside to play in the rain, I guess, in the aftermath of a storm. Maybe there's some sort of beautiful, poetic analogy there. Who cares, I'm huddled like a cornered baby animal right now.
Yes, it sounded like a freight train.
And for all I know, it took all day to make it's way. It slammed up against the side of the building, every tiny speck of sand sounded like gravel being thrown under spinning tires. I was amazed, that for all the tornado's intensity, there was an eerie post silence. No wind. And the first sound I heard (other than my glorious heart and head telling me I'm fairly certain I didn't die just now) was rushing water just above me, in the ceiling. I stood up, and just waited. The building was still standing. I couldn't see sky or anything, that's good. I knew the tornado wasn't going to turn back around - like it would look over it's shoulder and see a witness, coming back to
devastate whatever it missed. But I wanted to embrace the quiet for a moment, and just being alive. I
think the very first thing I did, after impact, was grab all the
CDs off the taller than me rack in the hallway, and move them to the center of the living area. Not sure why I envisioned that to be the best post-
trauma place for valuables, and why I chose such insignificant possessions to save first...people act
irrationally under duress. I go with that.
The room was still dark, but cautiously peering out the sliding patio door, I can remember pink insulation hanging from the phone lines. Just bottoms of the small
cache of trees in the valley below the hill, barely visible and bark stripped like snapped yellow pencils. An ominous looking wet spot was beginning to accumulate on the ceiling. The phone still had a dial tone, and I called home. Kind of scared and excited at the same time, a mix of fear, adrenaline, and "I can't wait to tell this story", all at once. Now I was the
blender. Dad picked up, and in my search for something affirmative in what seemed like a post-
apocalyptic outside, I said, "Dad? I think a tornado just came
through."
I'll never ever forget it. He said, "No shit?"
My thoughts exactly. Ha.
I went outside, fearful my salvation granted would be cut short by a live power line strew underfoot. The sky just beyond the trees was aglow. Someone had said the gas station on the corner was leveled, and exploded. (It didn't.) Makes sense, thought, a mangled part of the station awning is lying right in front of me. Hurled like a shot-put from hundreds of yards away. The only valuable I really owned was my
Mitsubishi Eclipse, and it's a wonder my car made it without much damage; poor girl. I found a bike pressed , kiss-like, into her passenger door, and a small tree had fallen just between the driver's side and an adjacent car. Sandblasted and debris-strewn, but in one piece and right-side up. Check.
From where I could see, the building looked intact. Just a lot of debris carried however many miles, and now-nameless possessions strewn across the grass. (Later, helicopter coverage on CNN - !!! - showed incredible roof damage to the upper abodes. THAT was crazy...sitting in a hotel room two miles away later on, watching...for all intents and purposes, my HOUSE...on CNN. And near-million dollar , beautifully built,
impeccable houses in Sycamore and Blue Ash just reduced to seemingly a foot tall.)
The top floor apartment just two units up and over from mine smiled a horrendously toothless gap, the roof and window gone.
Leaving just an L-Shaped
remnant of the window frame, and now-
daybreaking sky showing it's cloud-less face. Luckily, I found out later the residents had been gone the whole week, and had yet to return.
Walking in and out among the shaken residents, I saw faces and families I'd smiled at in passing, but never talked to. All of us trying to make sense of what had happened, and no one wanting to say anything less than what might just be a calm reassurance. Some of us
trekked up the hill and gathered up at the front office, somewhat questioning whether we should/were allowed to stay in our units, but mostly not even knowing where to stand. Feeling like we were just mostly in the way of nothing - help hadn't really yet arrived, but you felt like you had to constantly had to shift; like where you planted yourself still wasn't quite out of the way of where you shouldn't be. I can still remember the front office staff, still clad in fuzzy pajamas and brandishing underpowered flashlights, trying to
organize their chaos of duty, while calming their own wide-eyed and scared children (and selves) too. There's a vivid recollection of standing next to an older woman, in her midst of another storm: words like "renters insurance" and "temporary shelter"
bouncing off ears that couldn't comprehend. Her eyes in a mournful gaze, with no other family and wondering "But where are we going to go? What about all our things?". She looked for comfort and
reassurance to chosen authority figures that (understandably so) scratched their heads and didn't yet have answers to give. (I do think the management did a great job, and they were always there to answer the phone or help out. No one wanted this to happen, and all of them were nothing but consumate professionals.)
It was truly heartbreaking, but the weird thing was - the only comfort I felt I could be to anyone was just to be in the midst of being one of the people affected. But I also didn't want to stand around and feel helpless/ sorry for myself. So...I went on in to work. (I had called in a little earlier to say I might be late ...understatement). But not before I took my car up about two miles to a car wash - whatever, I knew a free
coinbox code - to get some of the cardboard and leaves out of my poor baby's air grill...it was amazing, the tornado
apparently cut such a swath that no one just a little distance north seemed to have any idea or realized what had
occurred maybe three hours earlier. Oh, the stares and crazy looks I got as I pulled out debris and left it on the lot. (maybe THAT'S why I got dirty looks...ha)
(My boss said, "You know, Marcus, there are certain times when you probably don't need to come in to work." But what was I gonna do? I actually, believe it or not, needed something to occupy my mind other than next steps.)
Later that day, along with some great, selfless guys from my work, I was able to get most of my stuff out of the apartment and into temporary storage. It was like a pickup convoy...any one wo had the means, was there for me, and I will always be indebted We had to wait out near the exit road for nearly an hour before the structure was deemed safe...and once granted access, we had maybe a half hour to get everything out. (Bless him, an officer came around , in an effort to keep an eye out for possible looting, and saw these big, burley, south-of-the-river Kentucky men hauling out box after box of my stuff, just in case the building might wanna just give up...it got to be kind of a gathering bond, everyone there for a cause...and he asked to see one of the more good-time-having men's ID. "Awe, you don't wanna see HIS ID....ha ha.." "Yes...yes I do." Ooookay.
So weird to think, one day everything's just okay and you're complaining about how cramped your apartment is, can't wai until your lease expires...and a few hours later, all your stuff is packed in boxes, being hauled out....and every single other person you see is doing the
exact same thing, en masse. I helped a couple neighbors look through piles of belongings chucked through open windows, in an effort to make sense of the conglomerated debris.
The building ultimately was demolished a couple years later, and new housing built on the grounds. And almost right after the tornado, I ended up getting my full security deposit back....huh. Didn't expect that, but sure. Sorry, i didn't get a chance to clean up, though.
Oh yeah, later on, I locked my keys in the car. I also had two flat tires in the aftermath - one replacement was then ordered and shipped in the wrong size. The other was ordered, shipped, set aside for me to pick up, then discarded and
recycled before I could get pick it up.
Annnnnnnd my temporary hotel experienced a small electrical fire and I was evacuated to another hotel down the road.
But...know how you see and hear how people gawk at the scene of a crime or an accident? We've all done it. I could now say I now can empathize in knowing about the true
isolation felt because I was one of the ones being looked AT. Difficult to not feel anger and disgust at those around you, who are just spectators and not players against the pain. And for that, I have nothing but the utmost caring and understanding for those who suffered irreparable loss in that storm, or ones just like that one...maybe I didn't lose a house that day, and yeah, material possessions are only things that can always be replaced. I was mostly just inconvenienced, in the end - had to pick my mail up at the post office for a couple weeks, so what. Families were without utilities for days, and those not affected offered their homes and amenities to victims of the storm. It was just me, I didn't really have anyone else to care for but myself in that time, but I really did try to look out for everyone around me at the same time. Thinking back, I don't really think I did that much except be there. I didn't pull anyone out of rubble, didn't rescue a dog. Four people sadly didn't make it, some were swept out of their beds without knowing any different. But I know that fear and immediate
hopelessness, of wanting to go back or trying to snap fingers and advance the time to a less awe-inspiring dread.
But I also know that ultimately, you somehow come out a better person, more appreciative of those around you genuinely caring and wanting to help. Witnessing the kindness and compassionate of not strangers but friends in that moment...and looking back, you just feel more ALIVE.
And with one more story to tell.
