Alabama Trip

It all started about a week ago today. I saw my friend Pat and his girlfriend Amanda's post on Facebook that stated they are getting ready to batten down the hatches for a tornado. I added in my two cents and let him know if it gets bad he could always bug out up here. No one had any idea that it would have been the disaster that it is today. I saw some more posts come up about the damage that was caused, how many missing people are being reported, how many people are without houses, power, water, food, electricity, how much help would be needed. I thought at first, I'm sure our Country will help them out. Pat, who lives about 30 min from Tuscaloosa, posted he was getting ready to see if he could help out through the guard. He has finished his second tour in Afghanistan a few months ago and had some gear we could use like water packs and boots. They would not let him because he was attached to GA. Well, just hearing about how he wanted to go help set a spark in me. I had jokingly asked my boss, hey if I had nothing going on this weekend if he minded about me going to help, he said of course not. I debated it for some time, that being about 12 hours, and when Pat called me he asked if I were serious about heading up I said I was. He let me know another one of my friends, Bill, was going to. I discussed it lightly at first with my fiance Robyn, she was hesitant because she was not sure she would be able to handle it emotionally.  To be honest  I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking this way, but we finally came to an agreement and she wanted to come with. Pat and I talked about what we were going to be able to help with, we thought search and rescue would be something that had to be done and me, Bill, and Pat were willing to do. Pat and Amanda were going to work out the details of our assistance while we figured out how to get down there.

Robyn and I have a 7 mpg Jeep, a 12 mpg expedition, and a 96' Sunfire that could be on it's last leg. Bill has a truck that gets about 17 mpg, so far this was our best option. I asked around and our friend Trisha offered to let us use her Cobalt, thankfully that saved a ton of money on the gas to get down there. We left that Friday at 10PM and hauled it overnight, the trip was great company, but hell trying to stay awake, even splitting the shifts. I'll tell you what, seeing the sunrise as we entered in Alabama was absolutely amazing. Some of the destruction could be seen as we came across, trees tore up and snapped in half, nothing out of the ordinary from damage I've seen from tornadoes before. As we got further into the state we saw more and more. It was crazy seeing giant highway light posts, you know the big ones with like 7 huge lights at the top, just bent over halfway and twisted. If this was surprising to me I had no idea what else was in store.  We arrived at about 7AM or so. Just in time for some good food, a shower, and a nap, before we went out to see what good we could do. We geared up with what we had, water, food, some medical supplies, and headed out to a church near Tuscaloosa. As we traveled down the road we could see more and more damage, huge steel road signs bent in half, debris scattered around. When we arrived they really only had loading trucks for us to load and unload. We came a long way and were prepared to do some serious helping, this didn't seem like the best use of our bodies. There were a lot of people there loading and unloading trucks. We decided to head into town where it all happened and see if we could be of some assistance there.

I prepared myself for the worst, it's much easier than being surprised by something you weren't expecting. As we pulled into Tuscaloosa we saw more and more destruction. There was nothing, it was like the entire town had been bull dozed over. Entire buildings were reduced to nothing more than a door on a hinge. Entire walls were missing from apartment buildings. We got all our gear on and started walking. We asked around a bit to people that looked like they were in charge. The area seems like it had been setup with multiple churches and groups to help feed people and provide water. No one really had a solid answer on what we could do, just suggestions and hear say,

“I heard they needed help across the street there”. It was like a quest, with no good end result. As we walked into a neighborhood it was just a flood of emotion and speechlessness. It's weird when you hear people say that but standing in front of a town that has just been leveled and it all makes sense. What is there to say? There are no words for it just emotion, and a lot of questions. We walked some more and met up with a large group of what appeared to be media. A gentleman asked what we were doing and we let him know we were looking for somewhere to help. He asked us all where we were from and was blown away when we told him we
came down from IL. He looked frantically for a phone with service, AT&T was slacking big time out there, probably had some down towers. He wanted to get a hold of a crew he sent out with a group of students that were doing the same thing but couldn't track them down. He pointed us in the direction of a shop back across the street. We headed that way and were met by a jerk cop. Before we even approached the main road he started yelling at us. We waved him over and he started yelling more, “where are you going, you can't go this way”. Amanda said it must have been one of those cops who become a cop because they were picked on in

high school, haha, it seemed to fit. Needless to say he needed to boss someone around and he wasn't letting us get by.  We let him know an older woman that owned a shop needed help on the other side but he didn't budge, dick.We made our way back to the other side and had a little food, red beans and rice, that a local church was handing out. On our way we noticed a man with a beat up truck collecting scrap medal. The anger rose to my head, this guy is clearly not trying to help anyone but himself, just trying to make a buck, I felt like just laying him out, we just all spoke loudly about how shitty it was to see people taking advantage of disaster like that. On the other side we spoke with the pastor who was handing out food, he asked us where we were from, I was starting to think of just saying we were locals from the reaction we got. They were never bad reactions, but always filled with a lot of emotional thankfulness, truly genuine, he grabbed our hands and prayed for us to be safe and thanked God for sending us down there. It was pretty emotional but at the same time kind of awkward. He sent us

on the right path though. He let us know that a lot of the main town had been locked down, and searched, as was marked on the doors of buildings, like Katrina. He said we could probably have a big impact if we headed to some surrounding towns that may not have a lot of help. We took his advice and headed out.

As we came to the area we saw more chaos. Houses with trees through the living rooms, houses ripped from the ground, people everywhere, looking for food, belongings, family. We also say a man driving a beat up truck with a small flat bed trailer on the back with about 4 refrigerators, the sickening anger came back. This was the place we needed to be, gut check. We pulled up to a house with some parking spots and got out to see if they needed help with anything, they seemed to be ok, we offered some cold water and they accepted. We told them we were looking to help out and asked if we could park there, they agreed. We geared back up and started walking. There was no hub, no main section that said, start here, this area needs help, it was just winging it. We started going house to house. Pat took the lead on these first few and we stayed very aware, looking for structure flaws, exposed wires, anything that could cause us harm. We found a child, maybe about 7-10 years old and asked where his family was. He let us know that he didn't have a daddy and his mom was somewhere, fearing a member may be dead we started making
our way in the house and checking out the scene. Finally, a

family member came up and we let him know he was all alone in this house and we were concerned that someone may be hurt. He let us know that everything was alright and we moved on to the next house. Most of these had already been abandoned but we made our way around and kept asking if anyone needed anything, food, water, help with anything, some said they were ok, some wanted water. We came upon another group of people that appeared to be doing similar work as us. We walked to the next set of houses and they were telling us of a story where an older lady was explaining to people how she survived inside her bathtub. That was pretty intense. They said

that there were a few people in the house behind us that may need some help. We offered our services and asked a few times if we could help with anything. They had a very large tree laid out on the side of the house going onto the roof. The roof looked pretty damaged, but they were cutting the tree to make room for a tarp. We headed up the ladder and checked the structure to see if it was safe, Pat and Bill were up there before me. We helped remove tree debris and pieces of the tree that the man was cutting with his chainsaw. It was easier just to have one man cut it and put the log down the line of 4 guys and off the roof, safer than carrying it across the roof I suppose. We got some good work done on it, enough where a tarp can go over it and prevent a lot of leaking. While up on that roof looking over everything you could see it was very overwhelming. Like how many people could help make a difference here, the destruction was everywhere, as far as you could see. One thing at a time I suppose.

We headed out of that area and moved on to another road. About a mile down we could see an entire neighborhood that was leveled. We made our way down, asking if anyone needed help with anything, moving heavy items, anything it looked like needed to be done. We saw a Sheriff on an ATV and flagged him down. He said there were some people, FEMA maybe, handing out tarps for houses that we could probably help pass out. We each grabbed a few and headed back down the street. We came upon a couple that had all of their belongings out in the yard. It was clear that a tarp would not help their house, in fact a lot of these houses needed more than a tarp. We offered to cover his belongings, despite the devastation they seemed to be in good spirits and very thankful for our help. We found another family a little ways down and asked if they needed some tarps. They had asked if we could put it on the roof, with no ladder, hammer, nails, we were very limited. We let them know we could give it a shot but they need someone with the
proper tools to come by. We figured out that Pat and I could lift Bill onto the roof and we did. We threw some tarps up there and some scrap wood that was scattered everywhere. He did the best that he could up there but like many houses, it needed more than a tarp. We were pretty angry to see that the entire family was out in the front watching Bill, a few kids maybe in their late teens mid 20's just standing there eating pizza while he was up there. Why did the parents tell the kids to help, they didn't even think about helping, it was very frustrating. We decided that we've done all we would there and moved on. We passed out some more tarps and some water and with our entire body's sore from the sun and work, we headed back. We had a lady ask us if we've seen a child with a broken back around anywhere, we had not, I guess there was a missing child somewhere in the mess with a broken back. There wasn't really anything anyone could do, no description, not even a vague description, just a child with a broken back. We kept our eyes open but didn't see anything.

when all is said and done, it is what it is

The whole thing was a crazy experience, very emotional and eye opening. It really puts you in your place as to where you are on the food chain of life. You hear of people preparing for disasters, having a plan and knowing what they would do in events like these. Hopefully it helped. There's not much you can do to protect from something like this so it would be more, what happens after. It really puts perspective on the petty things that we complain about in our lives. I can say that this was an eye opening experience for most if not all of us. We pray for the victims of this disaster and are more then willing to do our share when we can.