A Year Later, Residents Remember Twisters

Robin Brown’s family is still trying to recover from the that hit her Spring Place Road house and left them homeless.

The family is still living in a small mobile home that they purchased with money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. And, that living situation likely won't change as the family can’t afford right now to tear down their damaged house and start over.

“This is where we’ll be forever, and we’re trying to make the best of it,” Brown said

And, the remaining structure is a reminder of .

“I loved that house,” Brow said of the home in which she lived since 1976. “It wasn’t anything special, but it was our home. It was a part of our family.”

Not only have the Browns not recovered financially, but they also aren’t back to normal emotionally a year after the tornado struck. The sound of thunder terrifies Brown, her husband and her children. And, her 19-year-old daughter has moved out, too scared to live in a mobile home should a tornado hit again.

“It can thunder outside, and the little ones panic, my husband and I panic,” Brown said. “We’re scared to death. Now, we’re out here in a mobile home and we’re even more terrified.”

, about 30 minutes before the tornado sirens began to sound in the Cass-White Road area, Brown’s two children, then 18 and 11, grabbed their pillows and headed for the closet under the staircase in the large, old plantation house where Brown grew up. They begged their parents to follow, almost as if they knew what was going to happen. When the sirens went off, Brown and her husband joined their children in the closet, and soon after her father, who had been sitting on the front porch swing and said he was going to stay outside, was huddling in the closet as well.

“Dad said he could hear it coming over the hill,” Brown said. “We could hear the loud roaring sound coming toward us.”

Then, the twister hit, tearing boards off the white, wooden house that was built in 1876.

“We heard it tearing the house up,” Brown said. “You could hear the board breaking. The pressure on our ears was terrible. We could feel it pulling on the house. It was like a vacuum pull.”

Brown said her prayers quickly changed from asking God to spare her family to praying that they would not suffer.

“I just knew we were going to die,” she said.

When the storm had passed, the family left the closet only to discover it was the only part of the house that had been untouched.

“God had his hands on this community,” Brown said.

Frank Sieber was at his then-girlfriend’s house off Mission Road the night of April 27, 2011, watching television coverage of the storms when his neighbor called to tell him his house on Highway 20 Spur was on fire.

As he and Pamela, who is now is wife, got into their car, she told him that everything was going to be OK.

“That was comforting,” Sieber said.

When they arrived at Sieber’s home, they found it engulfed in flames.

“It was just humbling,” Sieber said. “I still get nervous when I see lightning.”

Later, Sieber learned that his home was the only one in Bartow County to be hit by lightning as a result of the tornadoes that ripped through the area. His wife, he said, was his rock through everything.

“Faith got me through it,” Sieber said. “And Pamela. That’s what helped me out.”

The second floor of Sieber's house was destroyed, and the bottom sustained water damage, so he tore the structure down. Though he still owns the property, he doesn't think he'll ever rebuild there.

"I don't know what I'm going to do with the property," he said. "I thought about rebuilding, but I don't want to tempt fate. They say that lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, but now I don't know."

Share your tornado stories with us in the comments.

Georgia was one of three states hit by 45 twisters that night. In all, 81 people died. Officials in Tuscaloosa, AL, unveiled a plaque on Thursday in memory of the tornadoes that ripped apart portions of the city. In rural areas in southeast Tennessee, recovery is reportedly going slowly. And, while residents are healing, they still remember the events that happened one year ago today.

In , while houses were also hit in the area, some leveled to the foundation, everyone survived.

Residents weren’t the only ones affected by the tornado, though. Two churches were hit.

The congregation of has since moved its services to a former trucking company warehouse on Hamilton Crossing Road. And, in June, members of Crowe Springs Baptist Church hope to begin holding services in their new building, which is still under construction.

Pastor Ronnie Cowart said it’s been a long and slow process for the congregation, which has been meeting in the church’s fellowship hall.

“We’re still in process of completing (the new church),” Cowart said. “We do have most of the building dried in and painted.”

Several members of Cowart’s church live in the Crowe Springs area, and residents there are as close to normal as they can be, he said.

“I think that normal changes every day for all of us,” he said. “It will probably be years before it has the appearance that it did have.”

But, the attitude of the residents has impressed him.

“I’m proud of our community,” he said. “We have a very resilient community. They’ve all stayed pretty positive. Everybody’s had their challenges. It’s not been easy, but I think they’ve all done really well in staying positive.”