STAR - Thevalleystar.net

THE SONNY SIDE
by Sonny Turner
Community pulls together to help
family that lost house to tornado
THE VALLEY
The Valley Star’s Flo Doughty and
her family had an experience of a
lifetime on March 2 when an EF3
tornado came calling, destroying
their home.
Flo and family, though, lived to tell
about it. This is her story of that
horrifying day.
By Flo Doughty
My life certainly
changed
on the morning of
Flo Doughty March 2, 2012.
My family was at
the Wellness Center enjoying
some exercise and fellowship
with friends, when all of the sudden,
the lights went out. They
were predicting thunderstorms,
but the severe weather wasn’t
supposed to begin until the
evening hours.
My cell phone rang and I could
tell it was TVA, so I assumed that
call was for my husband since he
works there. It was his manager
calling to see if we were okay. Of
course my husband said we were
fine; we were at the gym. The
manager proceeds to tell my husband
that our neighborhood,
Canebrake, had been hit by a tornado.
A bad feeling comes over
him and we immediately leave to
check on our home and start to
worry about our dogs that were at
home. What we saw when we got
there was pretty shocking….
When we turned into the neighborhood
we quickly saw the
house at the corner of our street
was heavily damaged; my heart
immediately sank. We turned
right onto our street and there
our house stood with half the roof
completely missing. My mind
raced as fear for the safety of our
dogs overwhelmed me. When I
got inside the house it was severely
damaged and two dogs
were missing; one collar was lying
in a pile of rubble in the living
room floor. We did find her in the
neighborhood; a nice neighbor
was holding on to her until we
could get to her. Our other dog, a
dachsund mix named Sky, remains
missing today – 14 days
after the tornado hit. We still
search for her daily, morning and
night.
Caleb and Sky
You never know what you’ll do if
you find yourself in this situation,
but we immediately started
searching the neighborhood for
our missing dog. When we
searched our immediate section
of the area we returned home
and started grabbing pictures off
the walls and trying to save photo
albums. The wet sheetrock on the
ceiling began collapsing around
us. Some dear friends, Jack
Davidson and Scott Edwards,
showed up with work gloves on
ready to help us try to save what
could be saved. It was raining
heavily and things were really getting
wet.
What has happened in the days
since has been truly amazing.
God is good and He is faithful. We
have had an outpouring of support
from our local community.
Our Sunday school class and
church members showed up without
us even having to ask for
help. People brought cleaning
supplies, gift cards, meals, etc.
They helped us get everything out
of the house. Some members of
our Sunday school class picked
through debris to save some of
my son’s Legos. It was amazing
to see people just jumping in
there, getting dirty, giving up their
weekend to help us. Neighbors
came out and helped search for
our dog. God sent His saints to
take care of all our needs. One
morning the Red Cross came
through with biscuits. My son said
it reminded him of how God sent
the ravens to feed Elijah in the
desert.
God is faithful and we sure love
our town and the wonderful people
who make it so special!
STAR
Publisher/Editor in Chief
Sonny Turner
sonny.visions@gmail.com
256-431-5498
Co-Publisher/Photography
Danny Johnson
tvsdrj@gmail.com
256-874-7571
Copy Editor
Debra Johnson
tvsdrj@gmail.com
Owners
Chris Shindorf
and Bob Teaven
For information on advertising,
please call Sonny@256-431-5498,
Danny@256-874-7571 or
Kathy Thornton@256-777-1425
Anthony Bates@256-874-2585
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is a publication of Alabama Real Estate Solutions in Athens.
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March 22, 2012 the valley star Page 3