NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Wednesday marks 10 years since the Good Friday tornadoes hit Tennessee.
Dozens of tornadoes touched down but the worst damage was reported after an EF4 hit the Murfreesboro area.
A mother and child died, and nearly 60 people were injured from the tornado outbreak.
An EF4 tornado was caught on camera as it struck, and a 911 caller was frantic.
“We just got in a tornado and the cars flipped and the window’s busted and we’re bleeding really bad,” the caller said.
Local minister David Young was on a run in a wooded area when the tornado struck.
David Young said, “There were other parts in my head that thought I was dreaming there were all sorts of things running through my mind, but as I saw the tornado come through the trees, it was like a black curtain it sort of slapped my jaw and turned my head down toward my feet.”
On his run he said he asked God to help him not be fearful.
Young said, “So I was hanging onto the tree and thinking about how amazing it is that this prayer was answered, in this incredible way.”
Young’s leg was broken and he had a cut on his head, but was rescued from the debris.
Now, a decade later, he’s not scared of storms anymore.
Young said, “It dawned on me that a tornado is nothing other than moving air, it’s not a monster, it’s not a demon, it’s just wind.”
Young’s story was just one of many that came out of the Good Friday tornadoes.
Right here at Channel5 Meteorologist Lelan Statom remembers that day vividly.
Statom said, “As that tornado was moving across Murfreesboro… we could see it from the Skynet camera and see it just move very clearly across parts of that county.”
With how powerful the storm was, many people feel it could have been much worse.
Statom said, “The fact that the fatalities were only at two was simply amazing.”
Hundreds of homes were damaged or destroyed, and people’s lives were changed forever.
by Alexandra Koehn (2019, Apr 10) WTVF
