F4 Strong Makes Us Stronger, 10 Years Later

Credit: NOAA and NASA

On the eve of the anniversary of a devastating tornado that swept through Southern Maryland, and in particular my home town of La Plata, Md., many of us have stopped to reflect on what has transpired in the past 10 years since that fateful evening, Sunday, April 28, 2002.


For me, I recall that dawn broke with a downpour. With fellow sponsors, my colleague, Sherry Santana, and I were to staff one of the spirit stations for a walk in the center of La Plata that morning. We were drenched at our corner by the time the organizers came around to advise us there was just too much rain. Sherry and I shoved our cases of water back into our trunks and headed to the local diner for French toast and pancakes before heading back home. By late afternoon, the rain had stopped, the sun was shining, and my family was planning what to grill for dinner.

The town is directly north of our backyard, and as we waited for our chicken to grill, we noticed the odd shade of the sky a split second before hearing the scanner my husband carries as an EMT and life member with Charles County Volunteer Rescue Squad. As it relayed a sighting of the impending storm, we flew downstairs. The storm's path was just north of us, and once it was by we emerged. The tornado had brushed right by our neighborhood, but we had nary a leaf nor limb displaced on our property. The electricity was snapped, and we knew from the eerie quiet that descended that my husband needed to respond. He didn't get much more than a mile from home before he pulled off and went into action. It would be midnight before we saw him again and heard of the devastation that we would see upon dawn's light.

Driving from our neighborhood into town was like entering a war zone. Trees snapped like toothpicks; houses ripped apart. The images are burned to memory of debris and litter everywhere with little left to recognize in the path cleared by the tornado. His newly constructed rescue squad building was destroyed, and gratefully the members inside had emerged uninjured. Their cars parked outside the squad were not as blessed.

Amazingly, the fatalities were few. However, the tornado damaged or destroyed 860 homes and 194 businesses in Southern Maryland. Most of our friends and their families were severely impacted. They lost homes, their school or their church. All of our routines were shattered for months in the wake of rebuilding the familiar -- grocery stores, banks, churches, post office, dentist and other professional offices. For us, it meant interruptions to the most trivial of routines, from getting our hair cut to cashing a check to having monthly orthodontic check-ins, what would seem a rather small incovenience compared to the loss others endured. Nonetheless, it rattled us all, a raw reminder that nothing is guaranteed beyond this moment, this very breath.

From the devastation we saw our community come together to help each other survive and rebuild. Our families, my co-workers and our neighbors were among the very first responders on the scene, and they stayed the course until the work was finished. The neighboring Amish community were beyond belief, arriving in force the very next morning to lend a hand and returning daily until their muscle was no longer needed. Other neighboring communities were just as helpful.

By the way, those cases of water in my trunk that we had intended to distribute as part of our sponsorship for the Sunday morning walk? It wasn't walkers that received them but rather the volunteers who arrived en force Monday morning intent on another type of workout ~ clearing debris.

Ten years after, the Town of La Plata has done an extraordinary job to mark this anniversary, and many will be gathering on the day to pause and reflect. Yes, much has changed when you look at the various before and after photos. It was a frightening time for us and for our kids. Just a brief six months earlier we had dealt with September 11 and the impact on our family and Washington, D.C.; six months later we would struggle with the weeks of Beltway sniper shootings and deaths. Our idea of what it meant to be safe was being redefined.

Today, 10 years later, we understand that we do survive but more importantly we grow stronger in the path of adversity: it is life at its best.