***Update*** For those of you looking for more information, Union has set up an emergency website until the main site can be restored. Visit http://uuemergency.blogspot.com. ***
I’m sad this morning for my alma mater, Union University. Last night as those major storms came through, tornados hit the campus. Hard.
Two of the dorms collapsed, trapping students in the rubble. They’ve all been rescued by this morning, thankfully and no one was killed. A miracle when you see the pictures. According to the university president, Dr. David Dockery, all of the dorms have sustained some damage, and the two newest academic buildings have both had their roofs torn off. Millions of dollars worth of damage.
I was news director at Union back in 2002, when tornados hit the campus that year. The damage wasn’t as extensive as it was last night, but at the time, it was a crisis in its own right. We lived in an apartment behind the campus and the tornado hit the campus at 12:05 a.m. We know that because that’s the time the tower clock stopped at.
I remember calling Dr. Dockery on his cell and asking him how it was. “It’s bad,” he told me.
My dad just happened to be visiting that week and so he was able to stay with our son, (who ironically slept through the whole thing even though we moved him three different times, the last to the hallway right before the tornado hit) and Cliff and I headed over to the campus to help. I spent the next 40 hours working the phones to report updates to the media since there was no power on campus and it was almost impossible for parents to find out if their students were ok.
So when the news announced that Union got hit last night it was like deja vu. I know the current news director, Tim Ellsworth, and what he’s having to deal with right now, as well as the rest of the university family.
There is a poster hanging up in my office that was made in the weeks following the 2002 tornado that is a remembrance of sorts of that day. Pictures of the wreckage and pictures of the clean up, everyone working together to move forward. And I know that’s what will happen today and in the weeks to come. The faculty, the staff, the students and the Jackson community and extended Union family will all come together to clean up. To move forward. To keep going.
Something one of the professors said during the day after the tornado in 2002 is quoted on the poster I have today.
“You know, this morning when I woke up, I thought I would see servant leadership today. And I did.”
I know without a doubt they will see that servant heart coming out from many in the coming weeks. I pray the campus is blessed because of it.
Please keep Union and everyone involved in your prayers.
(Photo from Jackson Sun. For more information about the tornado and the clean up, visit http://www.jacksonsun.com/))
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