http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2011/05/25/photo-gallery-tornado-causes-damage-sedalia/
When I woke up yesterday, I had a day plan. I was going to write a soccer brief, go to soccer practice, get a story angle for my article for Friday’s paper. All basic sports stuff. Until a tornado touchdown in Sedalia, Mo. My father texted me wanting to know everything about the weather as you could imagine his concern. I reassured him that I was safe in the newsroom basement with the rest of the reporting staff. He instructed me to stay inside and be safe. Shortly after I was on my way to the site where the storm had touched down. (Obviously didn’t inform my parents of this until after the fact.)
This was the most surreal experience of my life. Seeing photos and hearing the stories in no way could replace seeing it first hand and even begin to do this catastrophe justice. I learned so much from the experience. I may have hesitated at the idea of heading to a damaged town and speaking with people whose homes haven’t even been destroyed for even 24 hours. The emotions were all fresh. We were trying to catch a press conference at 4 p.m. The entire ride to Sedalia was filled with mixed feelings. We had no clue what we would be approaching or where to go. No editor could have possibly prepared or guided us through this story. It was completely up to us to decide where to take this story.
After the second press conference I was so ready to head home. It was almost 6:30 p.m. I hadn’t eaten since 9 a.m. and I had to pee for the past four hours. We didn’t quit there and luckily. We went back into Brentwood where the tornado had touched down. This one decision was the reason we found our lead. We climbed over fences through people’s backyards, little streams and muddy fields to reach families clearing out the remains of their homes. Stumbling upon the bus barn made the reality of the tornado damage seem so real.
Having the courage to speak with these people’s whose homes are now inhabitable was key to succeeding. One of my favorite moments is when we hopped this family’s fence in their backyard and they were all standing in their kitchen where the roof had been blown off watching us do this. Once we made it to their now outdoor kitchen, we overheard some great conversations. They were all just hanging out and drinking beers like a tornado didn’t just hours earlier destroy their house. The husbands wife was pregnant with a baby that was due any day and they now didn’t have a home to raise their first baby. One of their friends walked over to the garbage to throw his empty beer can away and someone goes, “the kitchen looks like this and you throw a beer can in the garbage.” The wife also made a point to inform her husband not to worry because she had saved the beef jerky.
These stories would have not been the same had we not made the drive down to Sedalia. I was solely working on adrenaline. When we got back to the newsroom completely exhausted, one of the editors informed us that we had an hour to write this entire story. There was so much more I had wanted to include, but time just didn’t allow us this. This was the most intense day of my life followed by an incredibly tight deadline. This all was possible by me being in the newsroom at the right place at the right time. As anxious as I was about producing a story to do this town justice, thus far, it has been one of the best learning experiences of my life.
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