Twister Fate

Hard to believe it, but it was ten years ago yesterday that a tornado ripped through downtown Nashville. I remember that day vividly, in particular Lips running across the lawn from her apartment to mine, banging on the door, and telling me to turn on the TV. The news screen had a big map of our neighborhood and the weather woman was drawing a giant X on the Vanderbilt campus, saying that a tornado was on the ground "here." Since I lived just a block from campus, this was a tad ominous, especially as weird winds swirled outside my window-lined living room. As I furiously cleared room in the closet (the only interior "room"), Lips swung her stick-self out the window to gaze upward in semi-crazed Arkansan storm-spotter fashion.

Luckily for us, the twister was actually on the opposite side of campus, raging through Centennial Park on its way to city center. On its way, it dropped a large tree on a Vandy kid out for an ROTC picnic. Miraculously, he survived, but only for a few weeks. After downtown, the tornado hopped across the river and leveled a good swath of perpetually renewing East Nashville. It was a traumatic event for a lot of people in this area. One local mom-blog describes the horror of looking out the window to see the tornado hovering above her children's day care. For those of you who were there, and for those who are just curious, here's some jarring footage of that day.