The community of Ringgold, Georgia, gathered early in the morning of Oct. 27, 2011, to plant trees vaporized or turned into missiles of death six months before when an EF-4 tornado ripped through the town.
The tornado cut a swath through Catoosa, Hamilton and Bradley counties on the evening of April 27, 2011. Twenty-five people died in the three counties. “The landscape of the once-quaint Georgia town still looks like a bush hog plowed through the area,” is how the Times Free Press reporter characterized the scene that day.
Now, Raye Brooks and the members of the Ringgold Downtown Partners were teaming up with local attorney David Dunn and organizers of Trees for Ringgold to begin re-landscaping the town. Her group planted trees at homes and schools all day long. The last hole the group dug was for a large tree on the courthouse lawn, when the more than 200 volunteers gathered at the end of the day.
Editor’s note:
This is part of an ongoing series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. To read more, visit timesfreepress.com/150years.
“We were tired but hopeful,” said Brooks. “Then, David Dunn got up there and announced that we had planted 348 trees that day. You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone started crying because that was our [Interstate 75] exit number, 348, that got hit by the storm.