The rental car weaved in and out of the downed trees and power lines on Main Street. A tall, thin man in his 30’s was totally stunned by the destruction he saw before him. His hometown, the town where he had grown up, was completely gone. Jarod Franklin could still smell the fresh scent of downed pines as drove into the remains of downtown.
The day had started out as a normal Saturday morning in Washington, DC. He was sitting in his kitchen, drinking coffee and watching the Weather Channel. He had planned a lazy day — a run down by the Potomac and then dinner with friends in Georgetown. But then he saw the monster. He cringed as the hook echo put a bead on the one pin-prick on the map that he truly knew. Before Dr. Greg Forbes could say “Tor-Con value”, he was in his car and headed to Reagan National airport. Within three hours, he had landed in Memphis. Within two, he was standing in a surreal world of twisted steel and broken lives. The EF-5 tornado had acted as God’s eraser. The town hall and Post Office were gone. The water tower was bent. The Methodist and Baptist churches were rubble. The area reeked of gas and death. Even he graves in the graveyard were missing.
The massive mile-wide funnel had scoured the earth. No one caught in it’s path would live to tell to describe it as a freight train. But if they had, they would have described its sound as something more sinister. It was like the hounds of Hell had been unleashed. Twenty-three souls were dead — a very high number in this age of Doppler radar, TV weather warnings and weather radios. But this monster was different. You couldn’t run from it. You couldn’t hide. You just met your fate.
The tornado had erased his childhood. His heart told him he had to do something to help.
A voice snapped him back to the horrible reality surrounding him. “Hey! You! You can’t be here!” The volunteer fireman yelled. As Jarod got closer, the fireman stopped what he was doing and stared. “What’re you doing here?”
Jarod smiled, “I wasn’t going to leave this mess for you to clean up, little brother.”
The two men hugged. “Is mom OK? I couldn’t get to the house. Is it still there?”
“She’s safe at the nursing home. The house is completely gone. So is the family store and the barn.”
“Daddy’s grave stone is missing. They say papers from the town are raining out of the sky in Alabama.” Rod threw his brother some gloves. “Watch your feet. Lots of nails sticking up. Why don’t you help me do search and rescue?”
Jarod nodded and spend the rest of the afternoon searching through broken beams and homes for his friends in the debris. He saw bodies stripped naked of clothing and skin. The postman, Mr. Skinner was dead in a tree in a field. Mrs. Gilmore died in the rubble of in her house. But as Jarod was covering her up with a blanket, he heard a whimpering cry. He pulled back a piece of plywood to find her small dog Jackie. Jarod held the shivering Shitzu and promised to take care of her.
What he saw would haunt him for the rest of his life. The violence of the wind was unbelievable. Two-by-Fours were thrust into concrete walls. The school was completely leveled.
“Thank God it’s a Saturday.” Jarod thought. “This could have been so much worse.”
As the sun began to set toward the Delta, Jarod sat on the back of the sole surviving firetruck. His hand shook as he drank from a Red Cross cup of coffee. He had been joined by 14 of his classmates, all who had come in from all around Mississippi. “I just had to come home,” they all said. The had to come home.
Home. That sacred patch of earth. Home. Where their hearts were. Home. In desperate need.
“I’m moving back,” Jarod blurted out. Rod and the rest of his friends looked at him like he was insane.
“And give up your lobbying business?”
“I have an offer on the table for it. I’m tired of the craziness of my life anyway. This town needs me more than Washington. I can take some of my money and help it come back. It’s what mama would want. It’s my calling.”
Rod looked at him and said, “Well then, welcome home brother.”
Jarod left the city and moved back to a small, damaged Mississippi town. He ran for mayor and won, guiding the town to its recovery.
Like a sailor blown back into port by a strong gale, the wind has a way of altering destinies. Jarod Franklin’s life was completely changed that warm April day. Mississippi’s winds had blown him back home.
