It was a birthday party for a 2-year-old, and about 75 people had gathered in the Christian Life Center across Wax Road from Flint Hill Baptist Church. When they heard a roar outside, their first thought was to herd the children into a bathroom, the only room in the structure that did not have an outside wall.
Then they waited.
They were lucky. The tornado didn’t strike the tin-roof building. But it did destroy five homes and damage about 10 more on Old Wax Road. It also killed two people and injured at least three.
The Christian Life Center was transformed from children’s party to trauma center.
An outsider can sense the community around storm-struck Old Wax Road is close-knit. One indication is that when American Red Cross volunteers go door-to-door asking victims, “Do you need a place to stay?” they all respond with words like “Thank you, but we’ll be all right.” They say they’re staying with family or neighbors or friends.
“Everybody knows everybody,” said Emily Colston, a nurse whose home was spared the storm’s wrath. “We’re all related,” added June Stansell, another nurse. Her home was also spared, but her sister’s and mother’s homes were damaged.
It was Stansell’s grandson, Ethan Ellison, who was the birthday boy. Stansell and Colston later accompanied Red Cross volunteers Richard and Winnie Morrow door to door. They know the people in the homes on Old Wax Road.
A woman in tears stood in front of the rubble that had been the home of her father-in-law, Jerry Albers, who perished. A volunteer with the Rome-Floyd County Community Emergency Response Team comforted her. A sign was hooked to her jeans pocket. Perhaps plucked from the wreckage, it read, “Don’t take life so seriously.”
The other fatality was Bonnie Turner of Aragon.
Friends salvaged what they could from the destruction and loaded the items onto pickup trucks. It is here that the Red Cross workers received their only request for assistance. Paul Albers said his mother, Betty, could probably use some clothes.
Betty Albers went to the home of her other son, Mac, before the storm hit. Her husband, Jerry, decided to stay in his home.
OTHER HEADLINES:
Tornado strikes: Deadly storm kills 2
Polk kennel destroyed in storm; dogs may be lost or dead
‘Hard to imagine’
A hay baler belonging to Frank Folsom traveled between 300 and 400 yards in the storm’s clutch. (Hay balers weigh 6,000 to 7,000 pounds.) Folsom is married to Stansell’s sister, Janet.
Neighbors helped Folsom secure sheets of tarp over his damaged roof. The wind was still gusting, so the job was difficult. When done, Folsom, his brother-in-law, Danny Brumbelow, and friend David Roesch talked about the tornado’s destruction.
Folsom had been at the birthday party for Ethan Ellison. After the storm passed, he tried to get to his home but had to take a tortuous route. He saw his barn first and feared the worst for his house, but it was still standing.
Brumbelow offered to show a visitor his farm from his Kubota RTV90. Rolling across his pasture, he pointed to a dead calf and the downed trees and then headed toward his barn, which was destroyed. “I’ve seen this stuff on TV, but it’s hard to imagine.
“I’m sick,” he said. “I know material things can be replaced, but I worked a long time on my barn. I’m sick.”
He turned his attention to his RTV, a happier topic. “This is a tough buggy,” he said. He’d found it upside down. He rolled it back over. It started right up.
Responders praised
Late in the day, Floyd County Commission Chairman Jerry Jennings heaped praise on the emergency teams — which included all of Rome and Floyd County’s emergency agencies and hospitals, and state agencies. “I wish every citizen in Floyd County could have seen that response. They would be more confident should they ever face a crisis. It was awesome.”
Response was the theme of the day.
Johnny Hames knew something was up. “I heard the storm come over, but I didn’t think it hit,” he said. But after a few minutes he decided to leave his house on Brumbelow Road to check on his daughter.
Shortly after he turned onto Old Wax Road, he saw the shattering of the rural tranquility that is this part of Floyd County. Broken and uprooted trees were strewn over the road, and local men were tearing into them with chainsaws. Hames got out of his truck to help.
Richard Morrow said he and his wife have been Red Cross volunteers since Hurricane Katrina. “What I’m always trying to do is get volunteers,” he said. “We just don’t have enough people.”
Back at the church, three men delivered food from Bellview Baptist Church in Rockmart and Worldview Baptist Church in Cedartown as part of Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief, a program of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Flint Hill Baptist Church was scheduled to leave on a mission trip to New Orleans today. That trip has been canceled.
There is now mission work to do at home.
