Tornado victim thankful for co-worker's generosity

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Two weeks later, Warren Mullinax can sit in the control room at the Aerodynamic and Propulsion Test Unit (APTU) and talk about what happened leading up to when his home in Alabama was destroyed by a devastating tornado April 27.

He can even smile a little bit when he talks about his one daughter's desire to find her Shrek doll - because of the $15 stashed inside of it - and finding furniture from other people's homes sitting where his living room used to be.

There are two subjects that force him to pause and compose himself before talking again. One of them is the antique furniture passed down in the family that is now gone.

"I can live without it, but it's hard for my brothers that it's all gone," he said. "I don't know that I had to do it, but I apologized to them that it's all gone."

The other subject is the support that he's received from his community and from co-workers at AEDC.

"The base went into emergency mode for me," Mullinax said. "I've had money sent to me. I've had offers of a house to stay in. I've even had a guy offer me a car because he knew all my vehicles were destroyed but one. And it was immediate action; it was not delayed from anybody I know."

Mullinax was doing his duty as a working foreman in APTU the day dozens of deadly tornadoes swept through the southeast in the worst outbreak the U.S. has seen since 1974's "Super Outbreak." He had been talking with his wife Robyn throughout the day. The last time they spoke by phone was around 3:30 p.m. After that phone call, he wasn't able to get through to her.

An hour and a half after that, a tornado swept through their neighborhood of Bridgeport, located in the northeast corner of Alabama. Mullinax headed home, hoping for the best.

"When I came off Monteagle Mountain it was kind of clear, and I thought maybe it missed us," he said. "And the closer I got the more devastation I saw. Then I parked about a mile and a half from where I live. They wouldn't let me in any farther because of trees down across the road. I just had to run the rest of the way."

When he got to where the house he shared with his wife and two daughters, ages 10 and 12, he saw that the building had been leveled down to the foundation.

Fortunately, all of his family - which had been barricaded in a central hallway with a mattress over their heads - had run out of the home at the last minute and crawled into a crawlspace underneath the house. A friend who had been at the house had saved them.

"He walked out on the front porch and saw the actual tornado coming at them out of the southwest," Mullinax said. "He ran back into the house and grabbed them and said 'we have to get out of this house.' They ran around and they went into the crawlspace. They said they were there no more than 10 or 15 seconds when the tornado hit."

Where their house once stood was nothing but toppled bricks and splintered wood. A Ford Escort that had been by the house was sitting smashed in a treeline 50 yards away. The tornado - which was an EF-4 with about 175-mph winds at the time, according to the National Weather Service - had even torn a neighbor's mobile home to shreds and left the steel frame sitting where their garage was, twisted like a giant pretzel.

"It was gut-wrenching," Mullinax said. "When I saw the devastation - I mean, anybody that has a family and loves their family knows about how I felt."

Mullinax took about a week and a half off from work to salvage their personal belongings from the home. Now in the afternoons when he leaves AEDC, he heads back out to the site to continue cleaning up.

Along with salvaging items like photographs, clothing and some pots and pans from the wreckage, Mullinax has found more evidence of how strong the storms that day were. Along with the furniture in his house that wasn't theirs, he has found items like car titles from as far away as Cullman, Ala. - which is about 95 miles from Bridgeport. He jokes about some of the odd and amazing things that the tornado left on his property, because it helps ease the pain.

"The neighbor across the road, his freezer was leaning up against a green car in our side yard," Mullinax said. "I looked at him and told him 'I'm fixing to call the police and have you arrested for throwing trash in my yard.'"

Also helping to ease the pain is the amount of support Mullinax says he and his family have received. He has only good things to say about Bridgeport's fire department, community churches and his co-workers at AEDC. They were able to get clothes, meals and other assistance to help them get back on their feet immediately after the disaster. A veterinarian even took care of the family dog - which was found after the storm with a shattered leg - free of charge.

"It hasn't just been from my co-workers," he said. "It's been from the lead engineers to test engineers to everybody. Everybody has contributed clothes or money or something. It's not just been from my fellow workers. It's been everywhere from Dr. Elrod down, and I can't say how much I appreciate it."

Wade Rogers, Mullinax's supervisor, says as soon as everyone heard the news they wanted to do something. Two days after the storm they drove down to Bridgeport to take him money they had gathered. Rogers said Mullinax - known by his co-workers as "Mule" because of his size - has a big heart to go with his big frame, and that's why everyone felt the urge to help him.

"A lot of the craft people here have a long-term relationship," Rogers said. "A lot of them have either been here a long time or have worked together on other jobs. They know each other personally on a long-term basis. A lot of them know each other's families. It's more than just seeing somebody at work. It makes you feel good to know that people step up and they care."

For the first four days after the storm, the Mullinax family stayed at a friend's home. Soon after, they moved into a home in Bridgeport that another AEDC employee had on the market to sell.

The level of generosity is not lost on Mullinax, who felt compelled to help others even though he had plenty of his own problems to deal with. Within two days of the tornado, he had washed all of the clothing he found at his home that he couldn't wear anymore - and he dropped it off for distribution at a National Guard armory. He says it didn't feel right to take things his family needed when others were suffering as well.

"We can afford to go out and buy a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt and a pair of shoes and things like that," he said. "I'm over here working on my property, being paid because I have vacation. There are people down there working on their property and they don't have anything. They're not getting paid a dime."

Another major hurdle has been explaining what happened to his daughters. Mullinax and his wife have tried to keep them calm by making sure they have other places to spend time other than the wreckage that was once their house. He said the girls have asked why it happened. He tells them God has intentions for them to do something in life that they haven't fulfilled yet.

"They're coming out of their childhood and will be teenagers soon, and they have their own thinking of what's right and what is wrong," he said. "You just have to sit down and explain it to them."

Insurance adjustors are helping the family. Mullinax said soon they will be able to move temporary housing onto their property, so they can be closer to the work they need to get done. He expects it will take more than a year for his family to get settled back into a new home (complete with a storm cellar), with new furniture, - and new memories to make.

"It's just material," Mullinax said. "The family's alive, and that's what means the most."