The News Reporter

Image of home being carried away will haunt man the rest of his life

By LES HIGH
Staff Writer

Terry Waddell was huddled on the floor of his mobile home praying with his wife and daughter when he saw something that will haunt him the rest of his life.

As he looked out his window, he saw his neighbor’s doublewide mobile home as it was being carried away by Thursday’s tornado.
“The tornado picked it up and it was spinning in the air,” Waddell said. “It was as high as the treetops. It went off over those woods. The tornado was tearing it apart as it was taking it away. ”

Waddell said the man and woman who lived there were tossed from the mobile home, their bodies landing just down from his front yard. Both were killed instantly, he said. A child was thrown out of the mobile home before it crossed over nearby woods.

“The child was hurt real bad,” Waddell said as he looked toward the floor and shook his head. “I don’t know if he’s going to make it. He’s in bad shape.”

Also across the street from his house, Waddell looked out to see Darryl McNair emerge from his crushed mobile home.

“He was in a daze,” Waddell said. “He didn’t even know what had happened to him.”

McNair said that intervention from God – and his bed, which was between him and the rubble of his mobile home – saved his life.

“I thought I was dead,” McNair said.

His mother, Lillie McNair, who lives not more than 200 feet from her son, said she was on the phone when she heard what sounded like a train coming. The tornado spared her home. She wasn’t aware of what happened until she looked outside and saw Darryl staggering toward her house, bent over in pain.

“I told him God spared his life,” Lillie McNair said. “God has given him another chance. This is praying time.”

Darryl McNair was treated at the hospital and received several stitches.

Waddell said his family had no warning of the impending catastrophe. “We were asleep and we heard this noise and the trailer started to shake,” he said. “It didn’t last a minute. It was here and it was gone. My wife and my daughter, we got on the floor and prayed. God spared us.”

“This is a small neighborhood; everybody knows everybody,” he added. “I still can’t believe it happened. Everybody is in shock.”

Norva Waddell, Terry’s brother, said the storm came over his house and was gone in “maybe 10 to15 seconds.” It ripped the car port from his home and blew down a fence.

“I looked up and it was swirling over the house,” he said. “My daughter and my grandchildren live right behind me. I thank God that tornado didn’t pick them up and carry them away.

“It’s so sad about those children that got killed,” he added. “I was over there visiting those people yesterday. It was a beautiful day. We were on their front porch.

“I used to care about material things, but today, they don’t mean a thing,” he said.

The Waddells live off Old Lake Road, the first area hit. Norva Waddell said he had talked with people who had seen the second site near N.C. 87 just to the north.

“Those were brick homes,” Waddell said, “and they told me they were obliterated. There’s nothing there.”

Thursday was deadliest day in county’s 198-year history

• Families visited demolished mobile homes Sunday trying to understand why their loved ones were the people killed in Thursday’s tornado, and some others living 100 feet away were spared.

By BOB HIGH
Staff Writer

Small and large groups of people, most of them family members of those killed in Thursday’s very strong tornado that ripped through the Riegelwood community, gathered Sunday at places where their eight loved ones lived.
They walked around quietly, looking at the homes spared by the deadly storm that caught dozens of families totally unprepared.

Sunday afternoon was also reserved for another gathering. First-responders from various fire and rescue units, plus Sheriff Chris Batten’s many deputies, and officers from neighboring counties -- among the first to gaze upon the scenes of devastation -- were debriefed in a special session at the Riegelwood Baptist Church.

Seven of the victims died in the tornado, or before rescuers could reach them after the whirling wind stormed out of the county. It touched down briefly in neighboring Pender County where it damaged some barns and at least one home.

The eighth person died Thursday afternoon. Officials, afraid for three days others would join the list, reported Sunday all seriously injured people were stabilized in various medical facilities.

The list of dead are:

O’Keon Tennell Wilson, 29, and his wife Tyesha McKoy Wilson, 27, who lived in a mobile home along Holly Tree Lane.

Timothy Carl Mai, 49; his wife Mary Ann Gasper Mai, 43; and his son, Michael Timothy Browne, 25 – a member of the Acme-Delco-Riegelwood Fire Rescue unit. All lived in a mobile home at the corner of Holly Tree and Pretty Branch lanes, the twin roads leading north from Old Lake Road.

Zuleyka “Suley/Suki” Ruiz Martinez, 23; Miguel Angel Jurado, 13; and Danny Ruiz Jacobs, 6, all who lived along a private road named Martinez Lane leading south from N.C. 87 almost to Pretty Branch Lane.

Died in hospital

“Suley/Suki” Martinez was a member of the large Martinez family who populated three mobile homes at the end of the little lane named for her family. She died in Pitt Memorial Hospital in Greenville after being airlifted from a New Hanover County medical facility.

The financial loss was estimated in excess of $500,000.

The tornado came from the south without warning. It snapped off tree limbs and tops of some trees along Water Tank Road, south of U.S. 74-76 in the Delco community. Then it passed over the four-lane highway.

One worker was outside International Paper’s lumber plant at the end of Federal Lane, just east of where the tornado was preparing to touch down, and saw 2-by-4s from stacks of lumber outside the plant began to move skyward.

The tornado dipped a little as it moved past the lumber mill and knocked over an outbuilding of a home on the south side of Old Lake Road, plus scattered from tree limbs and items in yards of homes. Shingles from several homes were lifted off, and walls cracked in some other homes – although they were not moved from their foundations -- by the powerful force.

These homes were along Old Lake Road and Pretty Branch lane, a gravel-covered road that curves to the east and intersects Holly Tree Lane.

The tornado began to get very near the ground. Some homes exploded. Others were lifted completely off their foundations and flung into a wooded area. Some occupants of homes were flung outside as their residences spun away.

Items scattered

Several homes along Pretty Branch and Holly Tree lanes was demolished. Ruins of some of them lay flat on the ground. Baby strollers, photographs, clothing and various vehicles were tossed and scattered like broom straw and wheat chaff.

The storm ripped through a small patch of woods, headed north for N.C. 87 and the Cape Fear River. In the way were some mobile homes along Martinez Lane, a short, meandering road leading south from N.C. 87.

Several of these mobile homes were demolished, others damaged. People were flung almost all the way to the hard-surfaced N.C. 87.

As the storm began to cross the hard-surfaced road connecting Riegelwood with Bladen County, the tornado – estimated to have winds of 225-mph – engulfed a two-story brick home on the south side of 87.

Some walked around with major injuries. Others, their clothing stripped from them by the force of the suction, were dazed and in shock. Rescue workers tried to find victims in a thick section of pines. They found injured and dead.

One victim was found in a pond, and pulled out, but it was too late. Ambulances began to arrive and workers tried to stabilize the victims.

Trying to cope

Many of the fire and rescue workers, plus law enforcement officers, are still trying to cope with Thursday’s chaos. They talk in hushed tones.

Steve Camlin and Tommy Justice, chief and assistant chief of the Acme-Delco-Riegelwood Fire Rescue unit, described Sunday how they got word of what happened at 6:35 a.m.

“It was about 6:45 a.m., and Hakeem Brown, a young member of our department who lives along N.C. 87, called the station. He said, ‘There’s a tornado in my yard!’ He called back in a minute and said everything was terrible and houses were gone,” Justice declared.

“I left the station at 6:53 a.m. and drove up 87. I saw a car, overturned. People were walking around like they were in shock. I called Columbus Central and told them to page out everybody (rescue and fire departments) that had an ambulance. We had to have some help,” Justice added.

“I left Tommy (Justice) on N.C. 87 and I went to Holly Tree Lane. As soon as I turned onto the gravel road I knew we had a mass casualty event,” Camlin said Sunday in a tired voice, leaning on a fire truck for support. (more about ADR on Page 4A of the printed edition)

While this was going on, Sheriff Batten received a call from Deputy Sgt. Troy Webb that there were bodies on the ground after a tornado went through the mobile home park just east of the Acme-Delco Elementary School.

People in woods

“He called back and told me there were people lying in the woods. I was getting dressed and I alerted all my people and I drove to Riegelwood,” Batten said at his home Sunday, obviously worn out from about 60 hours he spent in Riegelwood Thursday, Friday and Saturday. (more about Batten and law enforcement on Page 4A of the printed edition)

Justice’s call for help produced quick results. The units from Northwest and Leland in neighboring Brunswick County, East Arcadia – just up N.C. 87 in the edge of Bladen County – Bolton and Buckhead began arriving.

More help was on the way. Batten alerted Columbus Central he needed manpower. Other deputies just beginning or ending their shift at 7 a.m., plus off-duty deputies, their division commanders, and detectives headed east. Highway Patrol troopers moved in the same direction.

Debris from has been found as far away at the southeastern area of Kelly community in Bladen County – five miles.