To say that this past week has been one of the most difficult in the history of Cookeville, Putnam County, and Tennessee Tech would be a gross understatement. Eighteen fatalities, 88 injured, over 500 buildings damaged, over 100 families lost homes.\u00a0 Five families lost precious children and some children lost both parents.\u00a0 The numbers are staggering. The stories of survival are moving; the stories of loss are heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
Kari and I have lived in the South all our lives.\u00a0 We have lived through multiple tornados and even witnessed firsthand the massive devastation of Hurricane Katrina while living in Mississippi. \u00a0The old timers in my West Tennessee hometown, where tornados are much more common, still talk about the big EF-4 that wiped out the entire downtown, killing 40 people in 1952.\u00a0 However, knowing the potentially destructive path of nature never prepares you for something like this.\u00a0 Even one or two fatalities is relatively uncommon, but to have 18 from one community within a few seconds is pretty rare, even in the South.<\/p>\n
The seemingly randomness of nature was evident with whole communities wiped out literally feet away from untouched homes.\u00a0 Most of the devastation occurred not 10 minutes west of campus, but fortunately, the Tennessee Tech campus and our students were spared any physical damage.\u00a0 No students were physically injured, to our knowledge.\u00a0 About a dozen or so faculty or staff households were lost, and three were hospitalized for serious but non-life-threatening injuries.<\/p>\n\r\n