Well, it's already been one year since dangerous weather ripped across the Midlands of South Carolina on March 15th, 2008. According to the National Weather Service, seven tornadoes occured across the regin due to supercell thunderstorms. The day started out like any other Saturday, but it quickly got a very electric feel to it. The annual St. Patricks Day in Five Points Festival was in full swing downtown.
I was actually during a final walk-through for a client. The air had a strange feeling in it. On my way home, the tones went off on the radio for a tornado in Prosperity, SC, which was scary enought because I have good friends in that part of the Midlands. I drove to Elgin to meet up with my fiance, mom and kids. The tones kept going off on the radio as the tornado moved across the Midlands. We underestimated how far the tornado could travel. About an hour after I heard about the tornado in Prosperity, the radio station turned to nothing but static. We received a phone call from our dad in the Northeast telling us that the 
weather just got pretty intense. By the time we got everyone loaded up to head home in Lugoff, the rain was sideways, the wind was unreal, and our stupidity was realized! That was the longest seven miles I have ever driven. The hail hitting the car sounded like someone was hitting the car with a hammer. I could see the dents being created. I watched the car windshield spider as the hail hit it. The sideways rain was so heavy it was impossible to see beyond the front of the car. We inched home through the weather. A huge metal sign missed our car by inches. By the grace of God, we made it home. The hail was still so large that we had to cover our heads to get inside. The ground was saturated from the shear amount of rain that had fallen so quickly that we sank into the mud as we ran. The wind made the house tremble. When we got inside and turned on the WIS news, Brooks Garner was laying out of seriousness of the situation and the stupidity of what we just chose to drive through!
After the weather cleared and the sun emerged, Jim and I headed out to survey the damage. Pine trees were snapped completely off fifteen feet in the air. A building was competely destroyed right in the middle of downtown Elgin. The roof was torn off the Elgin House of Pizza and laying on the truck of someone who was probably dining there. The damage path went right through the middle of town, leaving rubble scattered through town. The tornado traveled right through a subdivision I worked at a year before. Several of my clients' homes were damaged. One was lifted completely off it's foundation and dropped 12 feet back, resting on the back deck. The roof and part of the house was ripped off another client's home while they were huddled in the downstairs bathroom while the F3 tornado hit.
Now that a year has passed, Elgin is back in business. There are plenty of new roofs across the area. Areas that used to be covered with trees are now fields. You can still drive by patches of woods with sideways trees. My clients had their homes rebuild...though they did rebuild one-story, all-brick homes this time. That day was my first real experience with the power of Mother Nature. I will not underestimate tornado warning in the future.
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