Tornadoes Tore Through My Hometown

I grew up living in a trailer on the New Madrid Fault line (on which an earthquake happened and made the Mississippi River run backwards back in 18-whatever). So, needless to say, I take severe weather seriously. I can't help but to take take it seriously when for more months out of the year than not Northwest Mississippi is under a tornado warning. Threat of severe weather is a part of my discourse community. It's one of the few things I know most about.

Now, most of the time tornadoes pass right over my old stomping grounds. In fact, in 18 years of living there full time, I'm not sure anything too devastating happened to the top of Mississippi. Until today. I called home upset about school, but my whining about how hard it is to be a graduate student was derailed by tornado talk. This afternoon, two blew through the Memphis area out of Eastern Arkansas, and they touched down in my hometown. Southaven, MS, got hit pretty hard, my father informed me. The Horizon gas station on Stateline Road was leveled, which is a stone's throw from where my mother works. She made it home before the first storm hit, and I'm thankful for that. Sixteen people are trapped inside the Sears at Hickory Ridge Mall in Southeast Memphis, a mere 10-minute drive from my house. Down in Oxford--where my best friend from high school is a grad student at Ole Miss--the industrial park was leveled. But said friend is good, just a bit shaken from watching the funnel cloud blow over her apartment. All those Arkansas Delta towns a mere jaunt across the river from my town are devastated. It seems as if my town and every other town within a 50-mile radius in all directions got hit pretty hard.

I'm pretty scared, since Daddy told me another tornado is making its way across Arkansas in their direction. I hope it blows over, and I hope my dad gets to stay the hell out of dodge tonight. He's a law enforcement officer, and that usually means he gets called out to help direct traffic and clear the roadways when bad weather happens.

I'll never forget August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Though I'm from about as far from the coast as one can be and still live in Mississippi, the whole state faced power outages and heavy rains. I was living in central Arkansas at the time, but I took Katrina hard because my daddy got deployed down to Gulfport right after the hurricane hit to assist in the relief effort. Since all the power lines and cell phone towers were down, there was no way to communicate with him. He was on the coast for two weeks--the first two weeks after the storm--and we didn't hear from him the whole time. You'd think state law enforcement agencies would have super-powered satellite cell phones so folks like my dad could call home and let their squirly, precocious, high strung sons know they're okay. But this is the Mississippi state government we're talking about--no money, no advanced technologies. Our governor is a lobbyist for the tobacco industry; what can you expect?

Well, at least this time things aren't as bad as when Katrina hit, even though this time the damage happened closer to home. Hell, it happened at home. My people are okay, though. That's what really matters. I just wish like hell Daddy'd move out of that trailer and retire from law enforcement.

Think about your Memphis-area neighbors tonight, y'all, and you'll be thinking about so many people I know and love.