The Night That Changed My Life...

I was in Wright when it happened. I had been taking a short nap when the sirens went off. I quickly got up and pulled on the first clothes I saw which was a t-shirt and shorts. Then I just sat in the living room with my roommates and the people from the dorm above (which we hadn't met until then. What a bonding experience...) watching the TV to see whereabouts the tornado was headed. I just jokingly said, "Well, if the lights go, we'd better get in the bathroom." Well about 5 minutes later the lights DID go, and we heard a loud rushing sound. I thought that somehow my window was open, because it sounded like all of the things on my desk were being thrown around the room (later I realized it was the debris from the rest of the complexes). We were yelling for everybody to get in the bathroom. In just a couple seconds it was all over. Calls started filtering in from friends over campus, including one guy from Watters calling his girlfriend. We could hear screams in the background, and he was pretty scared. I kept calling my parents who were on the computer, and leaving panicked messages on the voicemail. I finally got a hold of them and told them everything I knew (which wasn't much), and asked them to pray and call everybody we know to pray. All of us pretty much sat in the sweltering bathroom waiting for the RA to come in and let us know if it was all right to come out. Finally the RA came pounding on the door telling us to get shoes on, we were being evacuated to White Hall. In my haste, I was only able to grab my pillow and a small blanket, and the shoes I grabbed were my dress shoes since they were the only slip on shoes I had. What follows is the hardest for me to remember, and will forever be burned into my memory.Since Wright is one of the furthest outlying buildings, I could see what had happened to Hurt right away. Sequestered in the bathroom, we had no idea of the magnitude of what had happened, so seeing that was a nasty shock. Although to me, shock is a weak word to describe it. We walked through a branch and glass strewn parking lot to the courtyard of McAfee, and that's when we saw Grey and Dodd. I will be forever grateful to the men and women who helped my roommate Brittany, by literally lifting her heavy motorized wheelchair over the debris from the destroyed wall of Dodd. It was then, when we had gotten out of the courtyard, that it really all hit me at once. I called my parents in hysterics on my roommate's cellphone at the sight of the BAC parking lot, which was re-located to the oak grove just a stone's throw from where the Dodd/Dehoney dumpster had once been. I walked past the ruins of Hurt that was lit by the emergency crews and the occasional eerie bolt of lightning. It was surreal, like something from a movie, or even a Dali painting. It was a long terrifying walk to White Hall, seeing every inch of the devastation, taking it all in without registering completely what had happened. We stayed in White Hall for a short while or a long while; it's hard to recall passage of time. They assessed injuries, had us write our name, phone, and room number on a piece of paper, read scripture, and sang hymns. Many of the people I saw there I had never been so happy to see in my life (I love you guys, but seriously this was beyond the Tuesday-Night-Tea-happy-to-see-you). Then they shuffled us off to the PAC, which was where I was able to re-unite with a majority of my friends (I have gained a new appreciation for my friends). Some idiot had the bright idea of yelling "There's another tornado coming!" while we were between the clock tower and the PAC, throwing everybody into a panic, screaming and running. Thanks. Thanks a lot.The rest of the night is kind of a blur. Walking back through the rubble and cars between Hurt and McAfee. Standing in the intramural field waiting for a ride to a safe place. Sitting in the SUV of the Nursing Dean's wife during the downpour. Going to the house of a Union alumnus, across the street from the house of our driver. Taking a glorious shower after finding myself covered with dirt and a blood covered ankle from a blister that had rubbed raw. And finally things are coming to some sort of normality (if it can even be called that). It's been kind of a weird road to sanity. I've been going from forgetting the whole thing on purpose, to staring it right in the eye, purposely Googling articles on the disaster, sleeping until 3 in the afternoon in an attempt to forget, and reliving the whole thing from start to finish. But through this all, I'm just so thankful for God's grace and protection from start to finish. And even though I don't understand the how or the why, I have his peace that passes all understanding, and I know that we're going to get through this.