Tales from Tornado Alley “Hallelujah” We were sitting in the cafeteria of the Highland Baptist Church, a very nice, ordinarily serenely large structure, yet a bustling building of late due to the matter of the present situation. It sits on the eastern edge of Moore. Our lunch break rest stop, most days when out in the cityscape volunteering, helping the city and citizens of Moore clean up after their terrible ordeal. We come back here to ease our mind a bit and have something to nourish our bodies; to eat, drink and think of things less worrisome. It was a good place to cease the mind-bending overload of a place loaded with a abundance of over load of a multitude of problems. To relax, commune of things other than what we saw and experienced and to gather and share a bite to eat… in peace, comfort and humor as we all would let our hair down and share times of better nature. That’s what we would do here in this cafeteria. Get to know each other. We volunteers were from other states, other places. Other homes and families. Other religions. No religions. Other ethnicities and even, I found, other languages. It all made for very interesting conversations, surprising atmosphere and the good vibe of fellowship. It also gave one time to feel rested and reassured, ready to take on the remainder of the day. It never was easy though. The day…. much came that was unexpected, surprising and nerve rattling. Very heart wrenching at times. The Highland Baptist Church was a lone structure, seemingly all by itself at the corner of 4th and Sunnyvale… all alone due to the way the street from the west came down a hill apparently leaving the city and the southern end of the intersection where the church property stood came out from a long row of field cover set away from a tree line. The area came to the corner to meet a stopping intersection, the south road to the north slid up hiding everything else of the city, the west road shot to infinity and so did the northern tract all the way to Oklahoma City. But for some reason when I was looking for a place to go to find someone to ask if they needed help when I first came to Moore on May 28th in my “ol’ beat up,” I ended up there on that intersection. Started to go on past the place and then thought “That looks like a church with something going on.” So I spun the corner instead of going on north, turned in the parking lot and stayed for a long time. I came in from that south road so I almost didn’t see it, the church, until I was about to speed on past the stop …still the church was a good mile away form everything so it’s a wonder I found it. I wasn’t especially looking for anything in particular, just wanted to help someone. And the field I was up against did a good job at first of hiding the church from my eyes. But, I saw it. Perhaps in its favor a measure of safety in the long run as it was the safe haven that many ran to when The Monster, on its way to make its path across Moore, had run out of steam when it got close to it, or, coming into view of the church decided that this particular building was to be spared. Or as I like to believe… maybe The Monster was afraid of it. The Monster turned to the north a mere three blocks from the churches west side parking area. Tore asunder the surrounding tree and high lines, probably in spoiled anger to try to make a point, but as soon as the creature turned away, not only did the congregation of churchgoers come running to its doors for safe keeping, many of Moore’s citizens also came, hoping to be in the company of safe keeping in the hands of kept promise. There to huddle together in the safety of their Creator’s purposeful setting made for such a perfect time …”The Highland Baptist Church.” Perhaps I must have been sent there too… for a purpose. A promise yet unknown. I think that is what we volunteers were doing at the time we were sitting, talking, laughing and eating lunch. We were more huddled in the company of each others good purpose. No one really spoke of The Monster, not really … except this one day. The day had been especially filled with sights of unimaginable witness. The kinds of things you stood there and said, out loud … “How!” Like the brand new pickup truck that looked to have been literally ‘hand picked up,’ turned on its side and then, just pushed, with no effort from front to back till up against a huge tree it was a flat pancake – all around that huge tree until - its bumpers were touching! I mean ‘all around’ that tree! Even the truck frames steel main load beams underneath the truck, which are heavy squared off, edged-turned beams…. they were crushed to perfect flatness. And this, without a crease sticking out was seamlessly pressed around the tree like it was paper. Flat. Or the steel, multi-cable wire that was braided just like rope to begin with. Each huge two inch thick 30’ long strand with about 200 strands – braided together! As if The Monster, with plenty of time on its hands decided to sit down and braid a young girl’s hair. It took hundreds of cables and instead of throwing them all over the place, in a tangled unrecognizable mess - which in itself would have caused tremendous damage – it took the cables and literally braided them together like a huge rope or braid of hair. I checked this one out. Even the construction company who owned the cables was baffled! The cars at the hospital were not all damaged. But the hospital, which had the third floor completely torn off – it had to be torn down. The whole hospital torn down due to excessive damage and amazingly, NO one was hurt, and it was full of hospitalized people. About 180, plus employees, doctors and nurses and support personal. The Monster decided to have fun there also. Like I mentioned, not all the cars were damaged in the parking lots… In one area of the parking lot a line of cars were picked threw. The Monster, again seemingly bored or playing games decided to just slam every other vehicle, “Let me see… this one I’ll smash. This one ‘no.’ This, I’ll smash! …this one ‘no’…” etc., of about 20 cars in a straight row…… Okay, perhaps a large object went bouncing over the few, but twenty cars!? Every other one, in a row …and without touching anything else of the others… Not a scratch? And smashing them to the ground – flat! – like the Hulk on a rampage!!? I mean flat as a waffle! This creature did not mess around with making his message clear… which was, ah, er… I am not sure. We all just went around asking “How?” I have seen cars in junk yards and automobiles around Moore were different than those of junked variety… like The Monster was deliberately seeing just how artsy it could be. No two vehicle’s damage was the same. The school parking lots were a good example. Every car looked like they had been in a crusher but to a degree of differing measure. Mind you, most of these automobiles were in the parking lots right next to each other. Some were turned inside-out or twisted. Some were crushed in back. Some in front. Some had their wheels pulled off, some their paint was gone! Some, the whole top roof was gone and even the insides tore out… I saw too cars completely turned around in their parking places and upside down, but with no paint and nothing else, no smashing, no damage. But it was not a job waiting to be done later… the Monster was having fun with his art objects. Just scrape the paint off them, set the cars on their roofs, easy does it, and go to the next ones. It was nothing the same in any category. It was reported that The Monster destroyed 17,000 vehicles! I would bet that not a single car was exactly the same anywhere in the same as to damage. One fellow told the story that the crew he was working with came upon a car that was in the area a full two weeks and damaged beyond recognition except for the ‘Durango’ still on what could be presumed the backend of the SUV… even the tires were gone. It was a ball of steel. The blinker was still working though. I guess that says a lot for Dodge electronics. And their batteries! It wasn’t just the automobiles either. The way The Monster went down the blocks of the city. Like it was having fun. “I think I’ll just remove all the roof shingles on this side of the block on all the houses, but not on the other side. On this blocks side, just on every other house, maybe on just the front sides of the houses. And on the other side of the street… just throw mud or debris on either the side walls or the roofs, I can’t decide yet. I can’t decide which … on every other house? Hmm, the roofs or the walls, the yards or the walkways? And then leave every other third house alone and completely dirt free! Or, I’ll do a mess of things on the next block, like put a house on its roof but do nothing else to any other house. Yeah!” Yes… I’m being quite facetious, but think about it… it was mind-boggling to see all at once and over and over again. Like the home that had almost every room taken away except the bathroom, but left the living room intact – without outside walls, but left every piece of furniture right where it was including coffee table, sofa, table and light, books and knick-knacks, throw carpets and wall pictures! Like some one had just left the room to go to bed. Nothing out of place by wind or rain or Monster. There was no reasoning to understand how these things happened in some of the areas, where one house in a whole neighborhood would be completely gone and all the other homes – nothing wrong – nothing amiss, nothing damaged. Or a whole block along what was obviously a very well kept street – now gone! And just across the street, every home intact without damage. This Monster was out to not only hurt property but to hurt feelings and make emotional damage among the neighborhoods. However… It didn’t count on the people of Moore and what it was up against. I know this more than I am taken aback by what I saw in ALL the damage I witnessed in Moore OK. Remember… I was there for 5 weeks. Many times I remind my facebook friends that I worked overseas in countries that people DO NOT go to and even, never get to see except in a National Geographic magazine or on a television documentary or fictional film. Never witness for the pleasures of vacation or to sight-see. Many of these countries I have been to, and in most cases way before our troops were there or military actions were taken by anyone, so I have seen the devastation that the inhumanity of man takes in form and ill-function, similar in fashion to The Monster. The destruction, the terror and the hurt and pain … it can be quite similar. But there is an explanation to it all. A truly ugly one, yes. A misguided and misdirected one. But one looks about and sees the hand of man. As I say, it is ugly. Revolting and shameful. But in the case of The Monster …Where does one look? And to tell the truth... for what? It is far scarier when you do look. Many times I looked at the landscape of the whole thing of my travels, where I was and what I was witnessing, why I was there. I have been shot twice. I have been beat up a number of times and lost the cornea to my right eye. I have been put in confinement , jailed, and have been chased and threatened, bombed… Too much carelessness - things that I blame on myself for my being where I know I had no business being. I told myself “I know why I am here” But this place where The Monster made its home for only a short time... I don’t know why I was there. And the destruction, not man-made, was anything like I had ever seen or felt before…… For what purpose? This one time at the cafeteria while we were resting and having our noon meal, we were all talking of this especially surprising day of what we had seen that morning. Two huge 2’x3’x40’ long steel beams twisted together their full length like Twizzler’s red licorice sticks! Incredible! Some giant walked up to them, picked them up at each end and, gave them a simple twist, twisted again… and twisted again. Then dropped them where he found them. That Monster. What a joker! It just so happened to be on the day we were completing our time on a home in the area of the Plaza Elementary school area. We had gone by the school a number of times and it was a ghost town location. Nothing was left. It was silent and the school was ‘gone.’ A grey cloud hung over the area no matter what time of day we would go there … it was an eerie place. The site was wrapped in fencing and the area had a pox, curtained hung all over it that felt like a heavy iron block was lying on your chest as you looked at the area where the school had been. It was hard to breathe while looking at the scene of the tragedy. I don’t think anyone among us could look at it without a wetness coming into our eyes. A lump in the throat and a silent “Oh my god” whispered from one to the others. It was, to a much ascertained degree, a holy place, but tainted sadly, evil. The Monster had laid claim to it still though and, wasn’t letting go anytime soon. On this one day at the table of about 10 of us we were talking about the special meaning the place must have for the city and especially the people who had children attending the school there, as well all the children in the city. I mentioned that on my first week volunteering I had been invited to the church service of the Highland. I attended the church there and two mothers who lost their babies were members of the congregation (I have mentioned I will come back to that very special circumstance as I have promised in another tale) and what they had to say and how powerful it was… everyone listened to me intently and all got quite in reverent reflection, when, quite suddenly, a young boy sitting across from me, who was one of the volunteers, but who had up to that point only sat quietly and just looked about occasionally and ate his meal without lifting his head sniffed loudly. About 10 years old, maybe 11, with his head down eating, between bites, he spoke up, “I was in the water at Plaza.” I think every single soul in that cafeteria went hush. I can’t say for certain. My own hearing did that sort of high-pitched whistle that starts real low and then all of a sudden, gets loud and piercing. I startled and looked right at him. Mid plastic fork to my mouth. So did everyone else, at least at our table … everything stopped and slowly moved in that creepy slow motion effect. All wide-eyed and shocked… we were talking about the school with nary a concern of hurting anyone’s feeling or thinking of anyone being moved in anyway sadly or worriedly for the remembrance of having been through the ordeal, none of us had been there when it happened, and right in our midst, right in my view, right across from my seat, sitting with us as we ate our lunch … a little boy. A boy with blue eyes as blue as the sky and cheeks as red as a cherub’s. A slight smile on his face. Chewing his food “I was in the water at Plaza.” Like it was a simple matter of walking in the grass on a summer morning. No big deal. He sniffed, not as if crying but to clear his nose as he ate. “I was in the water at Plaza.” Now everything moved even slower… I’ve never been sure if that is real or something I conjure up in order to get a grip on my surroundings so I can make my own decisions easier as to what my next moves are, my next decisions or what I should be looking for in case of troubled situation, and what to do. Or is it just that I am in some sort of confusion, uncertainty and disillusion and is it happening to everyone all at once and in the same way? Or, if the noise of the rumble of casual talk and the giggle, smirk and laughter coming back among the others after my loud whistle stops, like the din of wild birds, the noise of the reality of things coming into focus was my own measure of tranquility being restored in a way that could be understood by my senses rather than everything just being ‘on again, off again’ then ‘on again’ so that I wouldn’t go mad from the trauma of my own reality. A means to get used to what was happening around me so out of character of the moment that without a break in reality I would surely keel over from the inability to fathom what was coming or what was happening, let alone truths revealed. Yet everyone at our table was silent and looking at the boy. Someone said “You were where? At the Plaza Elementary School?” Thank goodness! As the conversation snapped me into where I should be, at the table recognizing what was going on. I spoke to and bluntly “You were in the water of the Elementary school? The basement… the one where the other children…? “Yes… the other kids drowned. They were my friends.” Just like that. He said it so… easily. I almost started to go slow again but caught myself as others in the group spoke up. “Wait, you were in the basement when the school collapsed and you were in the water and, ‘how did you get out?” someone asked him. “Oh, the teachers were there to get us out and the firemen and parents and others. But some of my friends didn’t make it. Too much water. It was pitch black. And they were all little kids.” He put another bite of food in his mouth. Excuse me folks but, “Holy shit!” I screamed to myself. “This kid is a miracle sitting here. So nonchalant and eating his food and wait, he’s tapping his foot under the table!” I just looked at him, His cherub cheeks and his blue eyes. His smile and his chewing… “I was in the water at Plaza” Like it was a day at the beach and now telling us with no amount of emotion. I looked deep into those eyes, for something I couldn’t understand. How does a kid just get through that? I have been to places where I have seen children facing the same and more … Saddam’s northern Iraq after he bombed his own kin. Karachi, Pakistan with children the ages of 4 thru 10 in bonded labour rooms tying carpets, hands and arms oil burned from their ‘masters’ teaching them a lesson for making mistakes. Central Africa, the Ivory Coast, slave girls beaten for not making sure to be extra nice to customers. Pakistan again, slave bonded field children picking weeds in the cotton fields and eating the pesticide ridden cotton berries because they are starving. Boy soldiers in Somalia and Kenya … later killed, shot, murdered. By their own lieutenants. I can count hundreds of ugly things I have seen … so many mean hate-filled things and this kid, this cherub boy eating his lunch telling us in a nonchalant way, he was in the water! A shiver went up my spine. “Kid… You okay?” Someone said. “Yes. ……God was with us. He saved some of us but some of the little ones went to him … Its okay. They’re okay. I’m okay.” And he went on tapping his leg. Eating… smiling. There’s more to this one but the main thing is that this boy was strong… he spoke of his faith and why he was there to help. He just went about eating while he spoke. We all told him we were sorry for his having gone through what he had and what he had seen. He shrugged his shoulders in childlike fashion. I gave him my package of cookies. Told him I was “…very happy I met you” and “Good luck son, take care.” Take care. What the heck am I telling this boy to take care for? He has a greater power than my sentiment on his side. And the things he went through ... he tried to hold his friends up in the water! And did for some of them. He felt the bodies of his friends bumping his sides as he could not see anything while in that water. Yet... there were no stories of him and others ‘in the water’. Perhaps that is best but, I wonder, did everything go slow for him? When they found him did that low whistle start and then get loud and piercing and did he see and hear the slow motion of everything. Did he know of the things that move as they do so that one can get a grip on the reality of their life ... or, as I suspect, is he stronger than all of us. A little boy with a smile on his face, a cherub of grace and strength. A strength stronger than any mans. I thought about having told him “Good luck”…I am felled by such things now …good luck. I am certain I have been wrong about that thing we call luck. I am made uncertain and look upon the goodness of such apparitions as something much more than I can explain. And I don’t care to. I use to rely on luck and think of how many times in my life I got out of the jams, circumstances and troubles in those faraway countries and situations here in this one in which I had the good fortune, the “luck” to be able to side-step out of them or get by them or have something I needed to survive in my stead to rescue me. I know after meeting this boy it’s not luck. It is a blessing. I was blessed for having met him for having heard his story and for knowing of such strength. I sing his praise to his Creator. To mine also. I see his blessing and “How” he was blessed. And in return… how we are all blessed. Hallelujah. For him and his friends… Poor babies. God bless them. Blessed are the children for they know so much more than we. We can learn a lot from children. And be grateful for the blessing of having known them. Sing hallelujah. Hallelujah for the children. weather.yahoo/students-tornado-shattered-town-return-class-201300246.html
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 04:07:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015