Fox6 News was the first to have a crew in the air on Monday as dawn began to show us the path and the scale of this tornado's destruction. News Chopper 5 from our Raycom sister station in Memphis flew in during the early afternoon to give us fresh eyes from the sky and that is when the real scale of this became so stunning.
In Oak Grove, we saw some of the first signs of damage with a few homes in this small community damaged or destroyed.
In Center Point, homes were tossed around and Center Point Elementary, an almost brand-new school, had its center just wiped out. If you drive up Center Point Parkway regularly, you would probably recognize what used to be the strip mall. The auto repair shop just a block away where there is nothing left to repair of the cars anymore but spare parts.
Just a few miles to the east, a truck is flipped over in the driveway of a home and the roofs of numerous houses in the area are ripped off along with trees snapped down by nature's violent power.
A cul-de-sac in a newer subdivision near Chalkville shows how concentrated the winds were with every home in a 360 degree radius basically flattened by the winds and neighbors left wandering what they can salvage. Just a stone's throw away, the Department of Youth Services Chalkville Campus had several buildings destroyed, but did not report any injuries.
In Trussville, just off Deerfoot Parkway in the Pilgrim's Rest neighborhood, a mom could be seen pushing her child in a stroller and wandering down what yesterday was a calm neighborhood street. Now, she is marveling at what is left of a home and wondering what will become of this neighborhood. Just across the street is another example of the sheer power of the tornado; a partial brick home was simply shoved off its foundation like someone removing the top layer of a wedding cake.
If there was only one picture to take away from the chopper ride, maybe it should be this one: a dozen men perched on top of a roof, chainsaws in hand, already beginning to help their neighbor out. There are a lot of limbs and trees to move, but less than 9 hours after Mother Nature pushed through, these friends are already pushing back.
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