AEAMT - Angels Encamped About Me, Two!!

My attention was directed to her when I heard the kitchen door open. I heard step out the door and into the carport where she hesitated. "Honey, come here," she called, "Something sounds weird."

Since I have an interest in and can relate to 'weird', I jumped up from my chair.

Now let's take a look at the layout of our home. The living room is sixteen feet wide and 30 feet long. Along one side, there are two sliding glass doors which open onto the deck. The curtains were pulled back and we could see outside. On the other side of the room were two doorways of which one was to the entry and the front door, the other was to the kitchen.

While this kitchen was 16 feet long, it was only 7 and one-half feet wide from the living room to the outside door.

Well, Teresa called and I got up and walked to the kitchen door where she stood just outside on a wooden landing. She was just holding a sack of trash and looking somewhat puzzled. She says, "Listen. I hear something weird."

I stepped out and listened. I felt a gentle breeze and heard what sounded like a freight train coming into town. The railroad does come through town but it never sounds like it's coming through at full speed. What we heard sounded like a cross between a freight train at full speed and a continuous rumble of thunder.

Since I have never heard this sound before, I supposed that it might be something I have never experienced before. I considered that it might be what I really didn't want to face. I thought that we just might be in some serious trouble... and I didn't tell Teresa. I didn't want her to worry and I didn't want to have to peel her from the ceiling.

She stepped into the kitchen and I had just shut the door and I heard her say, "Look, Honey," She was standing in the doorway to the living room and pointing toward the sliding glass doors.

Sounds nice to hear a man and wife call each other things like "Honey," "Sweety," "Babe," and "Sugar" right? ... [I wonder if she may have forgotten my name.]

I looked to see what it was. I saw hail blowing in sideways and it was already piling up at the bottom of the glass doors by four or five inches. The hail had no downward slope at all - it hit the house from a horizontal projection indicating an extremely intense wind... like a tornado. I braced my spirit for what I thought could be the inevitable.

We could hear the loud roar of the intense winds. The lights went out as we stood in awe of what we were witnessing. Soon, within moments (about 60-90 seconds), everything was suddenly calm. It was almost total silence. Very still.

Still in darkness, we walked outside to see what was left of the neighbor hood. Debris was strewn all over. It seemed that the homes were still standing though, and in the dark of the night we could see no damage.

Soon, my daughter, Dawn, and her husband, Kaylon, drove up. They said that the police tried to get them to turn around and not even go into Cotter. They told the officers that they were wanting to check on us. They were allowed to come on down but they had to detour on alternate streets since there were trees down one of which took out the power lines, phone lines and a Cadillac.

The next day, we ventured out to see what damage had been done. Though there was debris and various damages all over our community as well as our sister town, Gassville, this is some of the highlights. To the best of our knowledge, the following is what had happened that night:

1. The tornado apparently came in from across the White River, and hit the bluff. From there it bounced and zig-zagged down through Cotter.

2. It tore some limbs from several trees.

3. It ripped up one of the oldest and most beautiful trees in town. It was at least 3 1/2 to four feet in diameter. It fell between the house and garage. It clipped corner of the roof of the house and caught the corner of the garage. But that wasn't all. These people had their beautiful late model Cadillac parked in the driveway. This enormous tree fell across the car from the passenger's side of the front seat to the driver's side of the back seat.

Five days later, they bought a brand new awesomely beautiful Cadillac. They had it two days when we had a bad hail storm in the wee hours in the morning. I looked on the deck outside and the hail was the size of tennis balls. The Caddy was sitting in the driveway again. Well, needless to say, I haven't seen the Caddy in the driveway since they got the garage rebuilt.

4. It hit one block away, pulling two trees from the ground, roots and all. These two trees were both tossed about twenty feet from the holes they were ripped from.

5. It came by our house, removed some clapboards from the rear of the neighbor's house which is about fifteen feet from ours. This house was on the side away from our deck, which is the side the twister was on. The house on the other side of us, where there are believers, also was untouched.

6. On its way through on the northwest side of the house, it ripped many of the clapboards from the next door neighbor's house (which is on the south east side of us), and completely stripped the bark off a tree and took a limb from the one beside it. The trees were at the edge of the woods behind our place about 60 feet from the house.

7. It then touched down about 100 feet or so behind our house, where it shredded trees and brush in an area about 40 feet in diameter.

8. It then went a block further where there was a house just across from city hall. This house had two sixty foot pine trees standing not ten feet from the facade of the house. The top of one of the trees had been twisted off about fifteen feet above the ground, and thrown across the street onto the City Hall lawn.

The tornado was all around our house, but we and our property were spared. There was a great wind causing destruction in all the community, even right next door, but we came out unscathed. Understand, we were between the twister and the house that had clapboards ripped off.

God guided that twisting funnel of wind around our house and those of other Believers. In fact just yesterday (Friday March 27th 1998) we had a bad storm blow through. There were tornado warnings from all over the state. A tree in our Christian neighbor's yard was blown down. It was dying and our neighbor was waiting to figure out the best way to take it down. His house was on one side, and a fence on the other. Behind it was an old dead tree trunk which houses some woodpeckers, which we both like. The only safe way to drop it was a small fifteen foot wide path past the side of the house. There was a fence there but it would just make it.

When the storm took it down, it fell right in the only safe area. It broke a small limb on a nearby hickory tree, and caught the rain gutter at the very corner of the house. It pulled the gutter out about four inches. He can just push the gutter back up and secure it and all is well.

My neighbor can cut a tree down and put it just about where he wants it, but the storm laid it right on. Lyle (our neighbor) told me that he couldn't have planned it to fall any better than that.

God's protection of even our homes and property are in His careful consideration and care. All the home insurance I can buy is nothing like the insurance and assurance I have in Christ.