Tornadoes are another twist of fate

"I can replace my house, but I can't replace my babies."

—Bertie County tornado victim

Wilson and much of North Carolina has begun recovering from a cluster of tornadoes that killed 22 state residents Saturday, the deadliest storms to hit the state since 1984. Most of us, like the Bertie County resident quoted above, feel fortunate to be spared death or serious injury. The deadly winds hopscotched arbitrarily across neighborhoods and streets, ripping one house to shreds while sparing the one next door. Incidents such as these leave us seeking some rational explanation — Why was I spared but my neighbor wasn't? — when there is no rational explanation. It is the same quandary we face after an automobile accident — "If only she had left two minutes earlier or later ..." — or a fatal disease diagnosis — "Why me, Lord?" Some take comfort in blaming God — "It's God's will!" — but this explanation turns a God of love into a God of evil. No loving God prefers such suffering for his creation.

There is no explanation. Things happen. A simple misstep can prove fatal. A tornado can strike one home and not another. We want to "seize the day," but sometimes the day seizes us, and there is no reason and no escape. The only comfort is knowing that even in tragedy God's love prevails.

Saturday's tornadoes were quite different in one way from the 1984 tornadoes that killed dozens, including some in Greene County: These tornadoes have been chronicled in online postings of pictures and video. In 1984, when I sent a reporter to Snow Hill to report on the tornado damage, there were no cell phones, digital photos or hand-held video cameras. Our reporter was out of touch for hours until she finally found a working pay phone and called in her report, which had to be read over the phone and painstakingly transcribed. Photos would have to wait for another day when film could be processed in the darkroom. Saturday night and Sunday, I looked at scores of pictures online and several videos showing a tornado bearing down on Wilson. One effect of this change is that people who have been spared the destruction feel more closely connected to it. Perhaps that connection will help as we try to recover from these storms with their online presence.