Today it has been 6 months since a tornado hit my house. It is election time for the mayor in the city of Suffolk so I have to make my thoughts known. This is very long.
On April 28, 2008, I looked outside my window and I saw a tornado across the street from my house. I picked up my then 8 month old daughter and headed to the middle of the house. I grabbed a queen size mattress in one hand while I was holding my daughter in the other hand and ran to the bathroom. Yes, adrenaline turns you into superwoman. I felt my house shake and heard what sounded like a train. The wind blew my AC window unit inside my house and I just knew that was the end. I put my body over my daughter hoping that any debri would fall on me and not her. The few seconds seemed like hours. The tornado siren went on after it finally went through my neighborhood. Luckily my house was still standing. I went outside and it looked like a disaster area. My front porch was standing straight in the air, my back porch was caved in from a tree, my shed had a tree on it and there were trees that missed my house by inches on each side. God was really looking out for us because if one of the trees would have fell inches to the right it would have fallen on top of us.
The house next to me had trees everywhere and they lost about 5 or 6 vehicles. They had 7 people in their house that day. The mom was standing outside on the front porch and saw the tornado coming. She had been watching the news all day and she was prepared. She had a fanny pack with all important information and had even written her kids name on them with a permanent marker. She packed up her 5 year old and her then 5 month old and got in her van. Her 2 other children, one of her kid's pregnant girlfriend and a friend also got in vehicles. They took off toward the Driver section of Suffolk. The tornado actually followed them down Kings Highway. Her back bumper was torn off and it was being lifted in the air. Luckily she accelerated enough that her van and her children were not tossed in the air. She looked in her rear view mirror and saw the tornado destroy Driver.
My neighbors 2 doors down were also affected. They are an elderly couple. They were standing outside when they saw the tornado headed to their house. They had just seconds to get inside. A tree fell on their house and they lost vehicles and other property. They have yet to move back in their house.
I have not spoken to the other people that were affected on my road. One house is abandoned and the other house is a summer vacation home.
Our electricity was out for 4 days after and we had to live in a hotel. We went home every day to try to clean the debri inside and out of our house. We are from Arkansas and do not know anybody here. There was nobody to help us with anything at all. The elderly couple that lives 2 doors down from us is from Florida and they don't know anybody here either.
The neighbor with all the children was really lucky. Her family is from Virginia and they had about 20 people coming to their house within hours to remove trees and board up windows. The next day their house was clear of all debri. There are 2 houses on one property and they live in one house and we live in the other. The trees were cleared around their house but not around ours. It kind of depressed me to know that people in Suffolk actually cared about them and wanted to help.
I started calling the many department in the City of Suffolk starting the day of the tornado. I called the Linda Johnson's Office. You name the department and I called them. I never received a response from anyone. I watched the media coverage of the aftermath in the Driver area, Obici area and Burnett's Mill from my hotel room. It amazed me at the amount of people that were helping with the clean up. Linda Johnson was there and so was Tim Kaine. I thought the people in Suffolk would be that nice and come help us too after they were done with the larger areas of devastation. I was wrong, wrong, wrong!
On May 6, eight days after the tornado, a deacon from Celebration Church (they have services on Sundays at the YMCA starting at 10:00 am) just happened to drive down our road. He saw the trees everywhere and asked us if anyone was helping us. Of course we said that nobody in the entire city of Suffolk had offered to help us. At this point nobody from the City had been to our house. Did they even know that we were affected? Do I live in an invisible section of Suffolk? The next day on May 7, a representative from the United Way came to visit us. They saw the damage and gave us some Walmart cards. All of our groceries were ruined so it was nice buying food again. On May 8, 10 days after the tornado, finally a person from the Department of Planning and Community Development showed up. They assessed the damage and I told them about the huge tick problem. After over a week with all the trees in our yard and our neighbors 2 doors door from us their were ticks EVERYWHERE. My poor dog had tick bites all over her and contracted Lyme Disease. A few other people on my road got the disease too. We couldn't afford to pay someone to remove the trees and our landlord was being a butt. He is a tight wad and wouldn't help us! We definitely couldn't afford to move either.
Then I went to the community meeting. Linda Johnson and the city manager both stood up on the stage and said that we could call them at any time and could even call them at home. They showed a list of the communities that were affected by the storm and you guessed it my road was nowhere on the list. I felt very unimportant an invisible yet again.
A few days later I found out that the City wouldn't spray for ticks until my trees were removed. I am very thankful that the Celebration Church offered to put us up in a hotel for a month and actually paid for my dog to be taken to the vet. They also got someone to spray for ticks in our house. Another person that helped us out a lot was Angela Koncz. She is the founder of the Suffolk Fuller Center. The Army asked her if there was anyway that they could help the storms victims. On May 10, a whole group of people from the Army came and cleared trees and helped clean up our road. All I could do that day was cry and tell everyone thank you.
Six months later the residents on my road are still affected every day. The female neighbors and myself have severe anxiety every time it storms. Sometimes I just go hide in the bathroom and cry when I see the wind blowing the trees. My neighbor's pregnant girlfriend almost went into preterm labor because of her anxiety. I still do not have my shed fixed and there is a very large tree that is still sitting beside my house. Every time I go outside my house I am reminded that I was an invisible citizen of Suffolk.
The real heroes of the tornado aftermath was not the City of Suffolk at all and especially not Mayor Linda Johnson. The churches, community organizations and the military were the people that really helped storm victims. Remember when you go to the polls on November 4 that we do not need a city government that does not care about its smallest citizens. Don't vote for Linda Johnson or you will be invisible too.
