Not So Super Tuesday

I can hear the buzzing of chainsaws from my office. A crew is next door, getting the tree off the roof of my neighbor’s house. It woke her up Tuesday night as the tree crashed into her home, above the bed she was sleeping in. Talk about a nightmare.

It was a nightmare for others, too. My aunt’s son is a police officer in the outskirts of Memphis. He was out in that chaos trying to help and protect others instead of trying to protect himself. His daughter was in Jackson, Tennessee at a small Christian college, huddled up for safety. My Aunt Ruth was worried both for her son and her granddaughter, and more than worried when she knew Jackson had taken a direct hit.

Mike and Marnie are both okay. Marnie’s college is very much not okay. She’s supposed to graduate in May, but it will be without about 80 percent of her campus looking like it looked Tuesday afternoon before the storms.

It’s horrible, all over. My favorite run away spot is damaged, over near Mountain Home. We love the Bull Shoals /White River area around Gassville and Lake View and Cotter. We camp and fish and canoe over there. If we can’t get that far away from home, we sometimes run over to the Spring River around Hardy and Highland and Ash Flat.

The beauty of the mountains and the rivers may surround them, but their people have been devastated. It’s so sad, every time. There is no rhyme or reason. One home is destroyed, one home is perfect. One life is gone, one life is spared.

At Marnie’s college, dorm rooms were completely torn apart, yet clothes hung neatly in a closet, not touched at all. That closet was now outdoors, but it was in perfect order while rubble was piled up just inches away from it.

It doesn’t make sense. It never has. I guess it never will. One of the things I was grateful for last Tuesday night, other than the fact that our community was mostly spared, was our own hard working men and women of our police and fire departments and emergency squad.

They were out in force with their eyes to the sky. They saw a good bit of rotation, and made sure our community was safe by having the tornado sirens activated when appropriate. Several of them had damage to their vehicles in the course of their duties. They very well could have been harmed while trying to protect us from harm.

It was the thing my Aunt Ruth was the most worried about. Her son might have had a job to do, but more important to her was that he was her son and he was in danger. She didn’t want him to be. She wanted him inside somewhere, safe and sound.

Mike knew his job was outside, so others would be safe and sound. So did our guys and gals of our police departments and sheriff’s office, of our fire departments and emergency squad, our trained spotters and our ham radio operators.

We have emergency services for a reason, and Tuesday night made that very clear to me. Super Tuesday took on a whole new meaning for those of us in Arkansas and Tennessee and other states in the Mid-South. It was more like Super Cell Tuesday.

All in all, I wish that kind of weather never happened. But since it does, I’m glad we have people that are willing to stand for me, to watch for me, to make sure me and mine will be well warned and well protected when the nightmare comes to my house. Being well served by those who have vowed to protect and serve. It’s just one part of being from Around Here.