Destruction and Renewal in Tuscaloosa

 

Tornado victims comfort each other in the Alberta City neighborhood of Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Editor’s Note: This report on the situation in Alabama was written by Writesforfood, please show her some appreciation for sharing with us. Also, thanks to Michelle Lepianka Carter of The Tuscaloosa News for use of these amazing photos.

On nice, sunny spring mornings in my town, I used to wake up to the sound of lawnmowers and leaf blowers.

Not anymore. These days, the sounds that wake us are those of chainsaws firing up and heavy equipment rumbling past the house.

A tornado tore through my city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, almost two weeks ago. Forty-one people died. Six are still missing. An estimated 5,000 buildings, both commercial and residential, were damaged or destroyed. Clean-up costs are expected to be at least $100 million, and that’s not even counting the costs of rebuilding.

I work at the local newspaper, a daily paper with a circulation hovering around 32,000. We get a lot more readers online, especially in the fall when college football starts back up. Alabama football is what this city, home of the University of Alabama, is known for. That, and pretty good barbecue.

These days, we’re better known as a scene of devastation. Journalists from around the world have descended on us, requesting interviews, photos, access to our online content. It’s a weird switch to go from being the ones seeking interviews to being the ones sought. I’ve managed to avoid having to go on the air myself; I chose print journalism as a career for a reason: So I would never have to see myself on camera or hear my voice on the air.

The tornado has been something of a boon for the local paper. Our online readership shot into the millions in the days following the tornado. People without electricity or Internet service begged us for papers. We were people’s only connection to information. We handed out hundreds for free at the local shelters, packed with information on how to apply for federal aid, how to rebuild their homes, where to restart their lives.

Keeping so busy at work has helped me avoid having to think too hard about what’s happened to the city I love to complain about. I’m not originally from the South, and I well know all the reasons why most people hate it. I hate it too sometimes, for all the same reasons. The casual instances of racism, sexism, xenophobia, they’re all here. I won’t deny they exist. Hell, I’ve had people accuse me of not being a Christian, as though that were the most insulting thing they could think of to throw at me. I’ve had people tell me that questioning their beliefs is doing the devil’s work, an accusation I repeat gleefully and proudly.

But after living here almost 13 years, I’ve found that this place also gets into your soul, in ways that are immeasurably moving and sudden. In the last two weeks, I’ve watched strangers treat each other with unbidden kindness, simply because they share nothing more than the fact of mutual survival. I’ve seen a colleague known for his stinginess and self-absorption buy three new fishing poles and a tackle box for another colleague who loved to fish but lost everything he owned when his apartment was destroyed. The standard greetings between strangers these days are usually along the lines of “So, did you make it through OK?” I’ve said it myself, to the young man ringing up my groceries, the teller at the bank, the woman behind the counter at the dry cleaners.

The reporters who called from India, Spain, the UK, have stopped calling. There are no more television trucks still parked in front of destroyed houses. Public events have returned to the city, although the atmosphere is just a little more sober and there’s usually a donation bucket by the door, collecting stray dollar bills for tornado relief.

The outpouring of concern, good wishes and donations is almost overwhelming. On the first Saturday after the tornado, I got out my heavy gloves and went out, determined to volunteer somewhere where I was needed. Turned out, so many of my fellow citizens had the same idea, they didn’t need me. This last Saturday, 2,500 people showed up again to volunteer. So many donations of clothing have come in that the Red Cross is begging people to stop. Workers in the devastated areas almost can’t work, so often are they interrupted by volunteers offering bottles of water.

It seems almost obscene to start living a normal life again. To have a nice dinner out with friends. To get annoyed when the coffee grinder dies. To drive to Target for dog food and whole wheat pasta. For the last two weeks, it felt as though the whole world stopped for us when the tornado hit. I barely noticed that I missed a royal wedding and would have missed the president’s press conference about the killing of Osama bin Laden if my boyfriend hadn’t been checking Facebook. Our cable’s been out the entire two weeks and I feel guilty yelling at the Comcast representative for giving me yet another variation of “we have an outage in your area. Our technician will be in your area between the hours of 8am and 7pm.” With so much devastation still surrounding us, how can I even think of complaining about cable?

Damage in the Forest Lake Subdivision

In some ways, life will never really be the same. The tornado tore through the most densely populated parts of town, both commercial and residential, so that whenever I go shopping, drive to work or go out to lunch, I drive past block after block of trees whose branches have been torn off so the trunks resemble nothing so much as giant toothpicks stuck in the earth. I pass devastated homes with spray-painted numbers on the porch, numbers I remember seeing painted on homes in New Orleans after Katrina. They represent the agency that searched the home, the date the home was searched, the number of bodies found. “0, two dogs,” I read as I pass one house that no longer has a roof. It gets to the point where people have almost stopped slowing down and looking at the devastation around them, tears in their eyes. They’re getting used to it, as though the piles of rubble were always there.

In many ways, life actually is getting back to normal. I feel almost ashamed of that, although I know it’s the city’s mission to return us all to as close to “normal” as they can. Streets have reopened, schools are back in session, garbage trucks are back on schedule, the mail shows up in my box every afternoon. But when I get angry at the cable company or feel happy to see apples on sale at the store, I still stop and think, “How can I? People are dead.”

People are dead, but the rest of us carry on. Would it be better to live in a state of perpetual disaster mode? Obviously not. Better for us to live just a little more conscious of how lucky we were, and to continue that spirit of goodwill and connection to our fellow human beings. Do I think we’ll actually keep feeling this well disposed toward each other? No. I’m a journalist, I’m cynical by nature. But for now, I cling to that and hope. It’s a nice thought to rebuild on.

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