Homes along Wolftever Creek are still in a state of repair after tornado damage.
Harrison residents salvage remnants from their residences after an F-3 Tornado touched down in the waterfront Chattanooga suburb on Friday, March 2, 2012.
Homes along Wolftever Creek were badly damaged in the March 2, 2012 tornado.At 15 minutes until 1 in the afternoon on March 2, 2012, while a tornado ripped through their street, snapping trees and roofs and disrupting lives, Ed and Rosie Cox stood inside a dollar store, building silk flower arrangements for their friends in a nursing home.
Max Cofer, their 76-year-old neighbor on Short Tail Springs Road, watched the news on TV, alone. Another neighbor, Bob Elliott, waited in a freezer in the back of a Bi-Lo, following orders and hiding.
At that exact time, Elliott’s wife, Jan, stood on the third step toward her basement, reaching back to shut the door behind her. As she gripped the knob, the door pulled against her. She looked up, and her roof collapsed.
It’s been one year since the tornado landed in Harrison, pushing 9.3 miles through parts of Ooltewah and stopping near Snow Hill. The tornado was one of six in the region that day, but it was the strongest, with winds whipping as fast as 165 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
A tornado can swallow up whole homes and spit pieces out across a region, leaving victims to scramble to find evidence of their old lives. Likewise, the damage of such a storm is difficult to measure, as is the recovery 365 days later.