'It's a whole different world'

Smooth-sailing Eagles redirected by tornado

Garrett Taylor had been through the drill several times.

A storm approached, sirens blared, and his family huddled in the bathroom but nothing ever happened.

That wasn't the case this time.

Taylor and his family were enjoying a taco salad for dinner April 27 at their home in the area known as The Plantation in Mayflower when they began receiving text messages around 7 p.m. that they should take cover.

"We put on our shoes, gathered up some things and started to hunker down," said Taylor, 18, the starting left fielder for Mayflower's baseball team. " I really didn't think it was going to be that bad."

This was no false warning. The sky turned frighteningly dark and the wind became so strong that the trees surrounding their house began to crack.

"The roof started shaking, and we knew then it was serious," Taylor said. "We said a quick prayer, hoping God would keep us alive."

Taylor's experience with the recent tornado that ripped through central Arkansas was one of several shared by many of the staff and students at Mayflower's schools. More than 70 of the school's students were displaced by the storm. School officials know that recovering from the damage won't be easy, but they acknowledge that returning to the athletic fields will be a welcome diversion.

"It's heart-wrenching," said Joe Allbritton, Mayflower's baseball coach. "There were a lot of huge, beautiful houses destroyed. It shows you how weak we are compared to forces of nature, and there's nothing you can do to stop it."

Crammed into the bathroom, Taylor, his mother Holly Rose, his stepfather Darren Rose, his 4-year-old brother John and his girlfriend Anna Cain waited for the tornado to run its course.

"It probably lasted only 30 to 45 seconds, but it seemed like forever," Taylor said. "When we finally opened the door, half of our roof was gone. Our back porch was gone. We had a pool house that was completely down to its slab. We had three cars outside that were totalled. Our garage had blown off."

The house that Taylor and his family had called home for the past 13 years was all but leveled by a tornado that has since been classified as an EF4, the strongest single tornado in Arkansas in the past 46 years.

Almost 3,000 homes and businesses were damaged by the tornado that tore through Mayflower and Vilonia. Sixteen people lost their lives.

"I didn't feel safe until 4 or 5 in the morning," Taylor said. "I was finally able to get a couple of hours of sleep."

Davis Gaffney, a freshman on the Eagles' junior varsity team, lost his home and his school in a matter of seconds.

Gaffney, 15, is home schooled, but Arkansas Activities Association rules allow him to play for Mayflower.

He said he spent most of his Sunday watching television and at 7 p.m. still had no idea that the weather was turning unpleasant until the family received a call from a weather alert system.

"It's address specific, and it calls your phone if there's a tornado in your area," Gaffney said. "Three phones went off at the same time. That's when I realized this was going to be bad."

Gaffney, his family and their pets piled into a walk-in closet. They remained in the darkened closet for about 10 minutes -- the storm had knocked out the lights -- as the tornado passed before building up the nerve to open the closet.

"All I saw was rafters crisscrossed everywhere," Gaffney said. "The rest of the house was gone."

WHAT NOW?

Things were going well for the Eagles baseball team before the storm hit.

Mayflower enters the Class 3A Region 2 Tournament at Benton Harmony Grove with a 23-3 record. The Eagles won all seven of their conference games, outscoring opponents by a combined 97-6. A victory today against Rose Bud will earn them a berth in next week's state tournament in Harrison.

Some coaches might try to use the recent tornado as a rallying point for their team, but Allbritton said he is hesitant because he isn't sure it is appropriate considering how his players and others in the school have been affected.

Plus, it's the second time in two years Mayflower has been hit with a disaster.

"We tried to do that with the oil spill we had last year," Allbritton said.

In March of 2013, an Exxon underground pipeline in the Northwoods subdivision released more than 200,000 gallons of crude oil and caused 22 homes to be evacuated. Many of the Mayflower residents continue to suffer from that leak.

Using the oil spill as a rallying cry certainly worked. The Eagles reached the semifinals of the state tournament last year and finished with a 29-3 record.

"We could use this [tragedy] as a rallying point, but I don't know if that would be accurate. We tried to do that with the oil spill we had last year."

Allbritton, a 1991 graduate of Little Rock Fair, considers himself a weather enthusiast. He can recall specific storms just as easily as he remembers lineups from his favorite baseball teams.

He said he went to church that Sunday, worked on his graduate degree, spent part of the afternoon teaching his 15-year-old daughter Sarah how to drive and anxiously waited for the storm to approach.

"I was excited to see some severe weather coming in," Allbritton said. "I love severe weather. It's weird, but I've been that way since I was a kid."

Allbritton and his daughter were cruising the back roads of Faulkner County when the storm made its initial move. Allbritton had been watching the weather through his cell phone, and when an alert was sent out saying a tornado was on the ground in western Pulaski County, he decided it was time to head back home.

They reached Mayflower Middle School, which has a safe room for such occasions.

"There were already two dozen cars there," Allbritton said. "It rained for five minutes and it was done, but you could see the circular lightning and then you could hear [the tornado] on the ground. I had never heard one, but there was no doubt as to what it was. I'm not saying I saw the funnel, but I saw the tornado and it was a black cloud.

"The hair was standing up on the back of my neck."

The tornado was headed for Shoreline Drive, the street Allbritton has lived on for the past 18 years, so he called to tell his wife to take cover. She and their 9-year-old daughter got in the bathtub and waited for the worst.

"Some of my neighbors saw the tornado," Allbritton said. "They said just before it got to our street, it took a hard 90 degree turn. Our street was hit, but it didn't take a direct hit."

There was still plenty of damage. A few trees were uprooted, power lines were down and the Allbrittons will get a new roof out of storm, but everyone was safe on their street.

The same couldn't be said of nearby Dam Road.

"The people on Dam Road took the direct hit," Allbritton said. "That's my bus route, and I know every one of those kids on that road. It was a little bit of sick feeling, and it's kind of changed my feelings about storms."

After the storm, Taylor spent the night at a friend's house, one of the few buildings at The Plantation that was left standing. It wasn't until Monday morning that he realized how bad the devastation was.

"You see pictures, but pictures don't describe anything," Taylor said. "Once you get out and look at it, it's a whole different world."

Taylor's grandparents brought their camper to Mayflower so his family would have a place to stay. Insurance adjusters are currently assessing the home to see if the house can be saved. If not, Taylor said his parents plan to rebuild on the same spot.

"It's a place I've called home for the last 13 years," Taylor said. "It's the place I want to return to."

Sports on 05/09/2014

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