Forsyth students visit tornado-wrecked Bertie County

When the tornado hit 16-year-old Keilah Howard's house, she huddled into a closet with her mother and her mother's fiancé.

Her aunt and uncle were running for a bathroom in the double-wide mobile home they all shared. Her uncle had his hand on the doorknob, she said.

Then, the roof came off.

Her uncle fell on top of her aunt, protecting her.

"He said he looked up," Howard told a group of Forsyth County high-school students that made the nearly four-hour trek to Bertie County High School on Tuesday. "And he saw the funnel."

From inside the closet, Howard looked up. Debris rained down into her eyes.

"I just hid my head," Howard said "And we just prayed."

The 14 Forsyth County high school students who had traveled across the state to visit tornado-ravaged Bertie County sat listening, in silence.

Howard's family did not take the reports of tornadoes seriously, she told them. They stood in the doorway of their home, in a rural area of the rural county, and watched as darkness enveloped the sky. Rain fell in torrents and the wind whipped through the woods near their house.

Then, the air went still.

"It was dead quiet," Howard said. "And there was a shadow around the house. And then, we saw the hail coming."

She held up her fingers, pressed her index finger to her thumb, leaving a golf-ball-size space.

Howard said her mother spoke first.

"She said, 'I hear it. The train is coming,'" Howard said. "And it sounds like a train."

That was when Howard's family took cover.

Twelve people died in the tornadoes that ripped through Bertie County on April 16. Howard's family survived.

The Forsyth County students came from North Forsyth, East Forsyth and Parkland high schools. They left Winston-Salem at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday for Bertie County to present the high school there with a $4,515 check from the booster clubs at seven Forsyth County high schools.

"We just wanted to come down and say we're here for you," said Ken Winfrey, president of the athletic booster club at North Forsyth High School, before he handed a check to Glenwood Mitchell, principal of Bertie County High School.

Mitchell said the money would go to nine families in Bertie County that had been affected by the storm.

"We did not know that we had friends from so far away," Mitchell said.

Mitchell told the Forsyth County students about Bertie High students who lost their homes in the tornadoes, and about one student who had lost his grandmother.

Bonnie Burkett, the media center coordinator for Bertie High, showed the Forsyth students a photograph of a dark funnel cloud taken by her father-in-law. She told them a story about an older couple who were sitting in recliners when a tornado hit their home.

"They were still sitting in these recliner chairs after the storm destroyed their home," Burkett said. "There are a lot of miracle stories that came from this storm."

After they heard the stories, the Forsyth students boarded their bus and drove through Bertie County, down country roads, past trees bent in half and piles of bricks and wood that used to be homes. Howard climbed on the bus, too.

K.C. Culler, a teacher's assistant at North Forsyth, pointed out places the storm had hit.

"On your left, over here, was a trailer park," Culler said. "Over there, on your right — that used to be a house."

"Oh my God," said Shakeelah Carter, 17, a senior at North Forsyth High School. "There was a house right here?"

Culler pointed from one side of the road to the other. "The tornado came across here, where this tarp is on this house."

Shakeelah raised her digital camera and snapped a photo. A few rows behind her, Nathan Jones, 17, a junior at North Forsyth, drew in his breath.

"Look at that truck," he said, pointing to a damaged pickup in a field. "The whole top is gone."

DeRon Fulton, 17, a senior at North Forsyth, pointed to a cluster of trees on the side of the road.

"A refrigerator," he said. "There's a refrigerator in that tree."

The bus turned from one rural road onto another. Teriana Edwards, 18, a senior at Parkland High School, turned to Howard.

"So, was your house O.K.?" Edwards asked.

"I can show you," Howard said. "My house is that way, through those trees."

The bus pulled down Howard's street.

She pointed to a lot, empty except for debris and a wooden porch.

"You see that porch?" she said. "That's where my house was."

Howard's house was destroyed by the tornado. A few walls were left leaning onto each other, but the damage was severe enough that her home had to be demolished.

Howard's dresser was not harmed, and she had laundry in the washer and dryer that day, so some of her clothes survived the tornado. She found her shoes in the woods. Her family had gone to Wal-Mart the day the storm hit, and their grocery bags were still sitting on the table when Howard and her mother emerged from the closet after the tornado passed. Her mother's purse still was on the couch.

Howard lost her cellphone. "Everyone else got to keep their cellphones but me," she said. Howard found her Coach purse only slightly damaged. The strap had been torn off. She left it in the family's lot overnight. Looters stole it.

"They stole our basketball goal," she said. "And they were after tin — they can sell that for scrap."

The Forsyth students listened and watched.

"It's awful," Carter said. "I didn't think anything like this could happen to me or to anyone.

"I always felt like it could never happen to me. Everybody should take it seriously when there are tornado warnings or anything. I'm going to take it seriously."

lgraff@wsjournal.com

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