Struggles in the South

tkscovill ♦ June 30, 2012 ♦ 2 Comments

This was a melancholy day. I couldn’t sleep last night for various reasons, then when I did go to sleep at 4 am I had one of the most disturbing dreams I’ve had in a long time. Basically, I had no control over any aspect of my life and submitted to a cultish leader who, not surprisingly, was very charismatic and easy to get along with. It gave me the creeps and I couldn’t shake it off for most of the day.

We stayed in a very small, very isolated campground in a place called Cordova, Alabama last night. I wrote a little about it in my last post. When we left this morning the GPS seemed to be uncertain about which way to send us. We were totally dependent on this thing to get us back onto the freeway, so we just did what it told us to do…until we realized we were headed into a dead end. The roads were narrow, and bumpy, and hilly, and deserted. And then we found ourselves in the middle of this devastated town. It was surreal. I thought I was still dreaming for a while. But I got the camera out and just started snapping photos from inside the RV while trying to keep Sam from driving down a road with no exit.

In April of 2011 Cordova, Alabama was hit by two tornadoes in the same day. These were category four tornadoes. Thirteen people were killed that day. their town was destroyed beyond recognition. The main tornado traveled 150 miles. Cordova was a small town with very old buildings and a lot of mobile homes. Here are some of the pictures I took while we were trying to find out way out.

As we continued to weave our way around this broken town we realized why the GPS didn’t have a clear path out for us. All the roads had been closed or re-routed after they were destroyed. I had called a couple of restaurants the day before and got messages that the numbers were no longer in service. I now understand why. The town is no longer in service.

Here is a website with info if you are interested.http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=event_04272011cordova Or you can just google “cordova, alabama tornado, 2011.” I’m sure there are hundreds of other towns with this same story–tornado plows through, tears everything up in its path, disappears into the sky and leaves people in the deafening silence with nothing to do but stand and look up at the sky in disbelief.