Remembering the March 3rd Tornado in Nashville
In December 2019, I told my friends that 2020 was building up to be the best year of my life. With significant events planned for nearly every month, I was excited to enjoy the start of a new decade. Starting with a family trip to Las Vegas, then my wife and I had our separate bachelor and bachelorette parties with our eyes on a wedding in March and reception in April. Not to mention an epic honeymoon we planned in Thailand.
The last weekend of February I had my bachelor party with some of my favorite dudes in Austin, TX. The day after I returned to Nashville, I picked up my wife from the airport as she returned from her wedding shower in North Carolina. I dropped her at home and sped to Top Golf for a work event. I didn’t really want to be there. I had so much wedding work and planning to do. Not to mention, my body wasn’t ready for corporate-sponsored booze right after a long weekend bar-hopping through Austin, TX.
I came home from our team event and sat in my newly remodeled open-concept kitchen/living room in East Nashville with my soon-to-be-wife, Anupa, and worked on wedding tasks. Among other things, I was rushing to finish designing our wedding pamphlet.
Around 11:30 pm, I hit save, sent the design to FedEx for pick up in the morning, and said, “Let’s go to sleep.” I turned off our new T.V., stood up from our new couch, walked past our new quartz countertop island and custom cabinetry. I brushed my teeth, put in my sleep apnea mouthguard, and got into bed with Anupa with our 2 dogs nearby in their large dog bed. I quickly slid off to sleep.
I woke up to the sound of crashing. Before I knew it, I was on my feet with my keys in my hand, trying to open the back door. I thought, “The house is spontaneously collapsing!” I had to get outside to see what was happening, but I grabbed the wrong keys. I couldn’t open the door. The noises were louder. The house was falling. I don’t really remember if I said anything as I ran back to the bedroom and dove on the ground and tried to climb under the bed. I don’t remember if I said anything when Anupa started yelling, “What is happening!?” As one of our dogs jumped and cowered on the bed I was crawling under.
I remember I couldn’t get under the bed. I remember thinking I was going to die. I remember feeling like I was drunk, or blacking out. I remember feeling like it was all happening in slow motion.
Then my other dog ran out of the room, and Anupa chased her. I heard her yell, “Oh my god! All of the windows are broken!” Things felt clearer to me at that moment. I felt some stimulus I could respond to with sobriety.
I stood up, I put on my glasses, I grabbed my phone that said “WARNING: TORNADO” or something like that. I yelled, “THERE’S A TORNADO!” I ran out to the hallway, “WE HAVE TO GET IN THE BASEMENT!” I felt like I finally opened my eyes. Glass was everywhere. On the floor, on our bed. Every window was busted through. We grabbed our dogs and we ran to the basement.
I still didn’t know if it was a tornado. My phone had said that’s what it was, but I was still waking up. I hear the water running into the basement from the broken pipes from our house shifting off the foundation. Is our house going to collapse on us? Are we safe? Do we go outside? I can’t help but think about 9/11.
I hug my fiancee and comfort her. “We’re Safe. We’re alive. We’re alive.” I call 911. It’s busy. I try again. It’s busy. Anupa get’s a call from our next-door neighbor. She’s relieved that we’re alive because she can’t see the top of our house from her back porch. She says not to run outside because there are downed powerlines everywhere. We’re stuck.
What if our 100-year-old house collapses on top of us?
I get a text from a friend on the other side of the city, “There was a tornado in East Nashville. Are you ok?” We banter back and forth. I say something like, “Our house is fucked.” I am panicked. He also tells us to stay inside away from downed powerlines.
I try to call 911.
They answer.
“I think we were hit by a tornado. We’re in the basement of our house in Lockeland Springs. We don’t know if we’re safe.” They tell us to stay where we are.
I can’t help but think about 9/11. The terror of the unknown in the midst of tangible destruction. I want to run, but I can’t move.
I’m barefoot. Anupa is wearing my slippers. I ask to borrow them to run to our guest room and grab a pair of shoes. She obliges. I run upstairs. Our chimney is in the guest room. I feel the tingle of fear at the top of my spine and yell to Anupa, “I can’t get to the shoes.” I find a pair of slippers from our recent stay at the Bellagio from our Vegas trip. I run down and give her the hotel slippers.
Someone is in our house. We yell, “We’re in the basement!!”
It’s our neighbor. He saw our house from across the street and ran over. We later found out his home was untouched by the tornado. Many of our neighbors thought we didn’t survive given the way our home looked. I can’t help but wonder if in some alternate universe they were right.
At the moment, I didn’t recognize him. I ran upstairs and said, “Are you emergency services?” He said, “I’m your neighbor”
I felt stupid.
He said we can come outside.
I said, “aren’t there down powerlines?”
I don’t remember what he said but…
I felt smart.
He wasn’t a first responder. So, I thought it best we go back to the basement. Even though, I still don’t know if the house is going to collapse on us.
I try to call 911 again. It’s been a while, or at least it feels that way. What are we supposed to do? We don’t feel safe. What if our house collapses on us?
We hear people upstairs again.
“We’re in the basement!!”
We run upstairs to see. Firefighters tell us it’s safe to come upstairs, and we can wait for further instructions. It’s not safe to go out yet… There are downed powerlines.
See? I’m smart.
They leave. Anupa and I sit on the bed. It’s wet and covered in glass and insulation. The tornado siren goes off.
We run back downstairs.
It stops.
We don’t know whether to go upstairs or stay downstairs. Somewhere in all this Anupa attempts to pack a bag.
She was wearing some pajamas and figured she should change before we had any other unexpected guests in our home. Probably a good idea. She grabbed a change of clothes out of the dryer in the basement. Good thing we started that laundry before bed.
Another neighbor comes into our house. An older fellow with his 7 or 8-year-old granddaughter. We know him well. I broke his lawnmower once. He never let me forget it. We’re relieved to see each other.
We figure it’s safe to leave since so many people have walked into our house at this point. Anupa and I grab our wedding rings. We’re getting married in 2 weeks.
We can’t find the dog's leashes. Everything in our house has been put somewhere else. Living with Anupa, I feel this way all the time. This was new for her. Jokes aside, it was new for me too.
We tie a coax cable around one dog’s collar and an HDMI cable around another. It wasn’t a great solution, but it worked well enough.
We walk outside. The front of our house is gone. Our roof has disappeared. Our porch furniture tossed into another universe. Powerlines are strewn across our walkway like spaghetti noodles. I don’t think it’s safe. The old man and his granddaughter walk on the powerlines as I say not to.
Ok… it’s safe.
The first responders tell us we have to evacuate because there is a gas leak.
We stand outside talking to neighbors recounting our impressions of the disaster. It’s dark, drizzling, and destruction is everywhere.
We can’t go home. We walk in our pajamas and slippers to a friend’s house about a half-mile away.
We realized we’re covered in debris. We shower, wear their clothes and lie in their guest bedroom in shock. We take turns peeing every 10 minutes. I know I didn’t drink this much liquid recently, but we both can’t go 10 minutes without having to pee like racehorses. Our trauma has become a weird bathroom joke. It’s weirdly comforting. We wake up, begin our clean-up, and the first coronavirus case is announced in Nashville.
I began to think that 2020 might not turn out the way I hoped…
