Twister spares Raymond Berry's house
As a football player, Raymond Berry was a poster boy for preparedness. The Baltimore Colts’ Hall of Fame receiver pored over game films, studied the nuances of defenders and memorized his routes for every occasion. He was a nearsighted end with farsighted plans.
But Berry, 76, felt helpless on Good Friday when a tornado touched down near his home in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
"All we could do was stand in the kitchen, watching it on TV to determine if we needed to go to the basement," Berry said.
The twister killed two, demolished 60 houses and damaged hundreds more. The tornado spared Berry’s house and those of his two daughters, who live nearby. But it carved a jagged swath a few feet from the home of his brother-in-law, who was not inside at the time.
"The power of that storm was unbelievable, a jaw-dropper," Berry said. "To be able to take a tractor trailer and flip it around like a domino half a mile away, well ...
"Plus, a tornado is so unpredictable. When that tail dips down, you don’t know where it’s going next. It’s a reminder of how quickly things can change, a reality that none of us ever really gets a handle on."
Photo: Alan Pozner / Special to The Sun