As I have been watching video’s on weather.com and hearing the stories of the experiences of those affected by Hurricane Helene, my heart begins to race and ache, and I am thrown back to June 2008.
Our little family had moved to Manhattan, KS just 9 months earlier from Lincoln, NE. My husband had completed his first year of his Doctoral course work for the Marriage and Family Therapy Program at Kansas State University. We had two little children, a toddler and baby. We had heard of tornados and been warned of the possibility and how to prepare, but actually being in the path… nothing can prepare you for that.
The Midwest storms come on quickly. I had taken a meteorology class previously in college but hadn’t yet learned to feel the signs for myself, as I had no previous experience. This evening in June the weather turned quickly, and the sirens blared. We lived in a 3rd floor apartment and knew we would need to run for a safe shelter. We gathered the children, our emergency bag that was always packed and at the ready, and ran through the pelting rain falling below the dark green sky to a friend’s apartment that was in a half basement. We entered from the ground level; however, the back south side of the apartment was underground as much of the Manhattan area is located on rolling hills. Myself and 2 other mothers, along with our 5 little ones, huddled in the large ADA approved bathroom on the south side of the apartment. The fathers were fascinated by the storm and were coming in and out to watch the amazing storm outside the window and back again to listen to the small boombox radio we had on in the bathroom. We listened to the news updates and hoped the storm would dissipate or turn. The rain and wind were quite loud outside, and the news kept reporting the tornado heading straight through town toward our location. I will never forget the male voice booming, “It’s headed down Peach Street now!” We were all looking at one another, none of us familiar enough with the area to know were exactly Peach Street was. Then the reports of the direction of the tornado heading south west through K-State campus… we were directly southwest of the campus, just off the border of the school property… Then the EF4 tornado took a slight right and just missed our apartment complex by less than an 1/8 of a mile and hit the K-State Culinary School building instead of us. To say that the adrenaline was pumping and the relief once we knew we had been spared was intense, is an understatement.
After getting very little sleep from the excitement of the events of the night before, many of the residents, including us, ventured out cautiously to assess the damage throughout town. Pictures never did it any justice. As I assume, now seeing the photos from the east coast and other natural disasters around the world it is likely the same. Seeing for my own eyes the destruction was truly shocking and devastating. Vehicles overturned, shoes and clothes hanging in trees, parts of family photos strung about the debris. The community united with work gloves and water to help one another. The emotions of those that were affected the most were tender and fragile. The reactions ranging from rage at the loss, to deepest sorrow and shock, to being overjoyed at life being spared, etc.
My heart and prayers are extended to the precious lives and tender hearts facing the challenges brought by Hurricane Helene, and other disasters throughout the world. My physical hands cannot be there to lift your sorrows and heavy burdens, but I know that the Savior’s wounded hands are outstretched to those in the eastern states today and every day, I am sending my love your way through prayer.