3.1.07

As I sit here I notice the time is 11:34 am. This was about the time a year ago I got a worried call from MIke to let me know schools were closing at 1 and someone needed to go get Bailey. I had just left a meeting at Hillcrest Baptit Church, adjacent to Enterprise HIgh School. So, I got Livi and Wyatt, and went to check Bailey out. THere were staffers everywhere with signout sheets and teachers practically throwing children at parents. Still, I had no idea. We get home, Wyatt gets to napping, it's between 12:30 and 1. I turn on the tv. The girls are playing. A few minutes pass and I hear "there is a tornado doing damage on the south side of Enterprise" MY mom's office is on the "south" side of enterprise, so I try to call her...she's at lunch. She's at lunch watching the monster bulldoze through town. Meanwhile, I get the girls into the bathtub. Wyatt is still napping. I step OUTSIDE to see if I need to wake him. If I had gone out the back door instead of the front I probably would have seen the thing. My mom, under her table at China Gate, sees the direction of the tornado, and it's headed this way. She calls me and asks me what I see...nothing I'm on the wrong side of the house. The neighbor beside me yells for me to get inside...he saw it hit the school by looking over my house. So, I tell my mom, and go get Wyatt and put him with the girls. I look in the back. My house is nearly 30 years old, as are many of the surrounding trees. They were rotating from about 3 feet to all the way to the top. The air looked like pond scum, and it was sickening. My mom kept saying, what do you hear, what do you hear....nothing. My stepdad says it's on hwy 27, just a few blocks away, so I go back outside, and hear a constant rumble,like thunder only never bursting or fading, constant rumble. It's over. Then the news comes pouring in. MIke calls me to see if we are ok and to tell me he is going to the high school to bein pulling people out. He didn't come home until almost 8:00 after all the survivers were pulled and all that were left were the ones lost.

It's difficult to remember that day without tearing up. I remember as a teenager being so ready to get out of here, nothing to do, no where to go. I sit here many years later and know that I am so blessed to live in this town. People helping without having to be asked. Strangers jumping in where ever they can. Parents driving to Montgomery to be sure our children's educational facilities are back to the standard we are so proud of. Yes, we suffered great loss, but if you were to drive through the streets today, still adorned with the blue and white remembrance ribbons, the houses are back, they families are here. Yes, the schools are gone, but the memories are not. Graduation went on in Bates Memorial Stadium as it always has...yes the landscape was different, but we continued on. And we still do....so thank everyone for your prayers and thoughts, We will never forget 3.1.07!!