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Sunday 'twister' lifts roof, places it atop neighbor's house

By Rose Hooper
StormDamage "You don't have to worry about what happened to your roof," Wiley Henson told his Caney Fork neighbors Marty and Vickie Brooks after Sunday's 'twister.' "It's right here on top of mine." Although both families were home at the time, no one was injured. Cullowhee volunteer firemen believe a twister came through a section of Caney Fork Sunday morning and Judy Henson watched it happen from her kitchen window.

About five minutes before 9 a.m. the sky suddenly turned black and Henson felt it get "eerie quiet."

"Then I heard a sound like a train screeching its brakes to stop on the railroad tracks. The wind and rain were intense," said Henson who looked out the window to check on her bird feeders.

Just as she did, she saw a mass whirling towards her Saddle Creek Road house.

Storm Damage Tin roofing and 8x8 timbers were lifted off of Marty and Vickie Brooks' house on Caney Fork during Sunday's early morning storm. High winds carried the debris 250 feet to neighbors Wiley and Judy Henson's home, where some of it smashed into their carport. "It's a good thing I didn't have my glasses on or I might have seen more detail than I really wanted to," said Henson, wife of Wiley, who was brushing his teeth at the time.

Tin roofing from the house of their neighbors, Marty and Vickie Brooks, hurled straight at her, along with flying pieces of timber. The airborne debris, traveling 250 feet, missed the main section of the Henson house, but imbedded in the roof of their carport, causing substantial damage.

"Timber and tin scattered all over our yard, in the rose garden and all over the driveway, blocking us from getting our vehicles out," said Wiley Henson.

Although they were home, neither Marty and Vickie Brooks nor their children were injured.

"I was in the living room in my pajamas. All of us had just woken up, we were late for church and in a hurry. My cat started running around my feet, acting strange, then her tail fuzzed up really big," said Vickie Brooks.

Then Brooks heard a sound she decribed as "a big jet plane coming over the trees." She ran to the front door to see what it was.

"Rain was coming down in sheets. About the middle of the field it switched directions, just like somebody slapped it towards us. All the windows started shaking and next thing I knew the roof and the 8x8 timbers overhead lifted right off," said Vickie Brooks, who, at that point, was joined by her husband and 17-year-old son, Thomas Nicholson.

Their 14-year-old daughter Colee Brooks had gone out to the barn, and when she saw what was happening, ran inside the barn, falling prone in a corner. The high winds and torrential rain, coming from Johns Creek, bypassed the barn.

Judy Henson said all the damage was over in a matter of two minutes, during which time her rain gauge accumulated a half-inch of rain.

"I've had a time trying to dig holes in this ground to plant trees," said Wiley Henson, who landscapes full time at Harris Regional Hospital and part time at home. "But I ended up with blunt 2x4s imbedded two feet in my yard."

"I wasn't there and didn't see it. But in talking with the Hensons and the Brooks and from seeing the debris trail where nothing else was broken, no other trees down or anything, I would say it looked like a twister came through," said fire chief Tim Green, who was on the scene soon after the storm.

While other areas experienced downed trees and power outages lasting up to nine hours, Jackson County Emergency Services Coordinator Mike Ensley said Caney Fork received the brunt of the damage.

Back to Archive: 03/21/02.