I’d like to share with you folks some of my thoughts and experiences while visiting Tuscaloosa, Alabama this past week. While flying in to Tuscaloosa Jessica, Jemma and I had the opportunity to see from the air the swath of destruction that started in the Southeast part of town and ran all the way through the community of Holt- it was a path of destruction approximately a mile wide and six miles long. It looked awful from the air but once we were on the ground it felt even worse.

Tuesday morning we met Mayor Walter Maddox and his staff at City Hall. We left there and went directly to where the tornado first touched down in Tuscaloosa and saw the EMA & Environmental Services Buildings. Both were destroyed, along with all but three of the city’s garbage trucks. Starting at the heavily damaged Rosedale Court, we then saw the Charleston Apartments and also learned that while one of the city’s water towers was and is operational, two were destroyed.

Like many of you, I have read the Sports Illustrated article and saw what is left of the house that our long snapper Carson Tinker and his girlfriend Ashley Harrison were in. Then we drove over to the Wood Manor area to see the house where my former head football trainer Jim Goosetree lived, and where his wife, Mrs. Goosetree, was during the tornado. By the Grace of God Mrs. Goosetree survived. Now folks, I want to try to express to you how familiar I am with the entire town of Tuscaloosa…but I promise you, we were visiting places I didn’t recognize.

From Mrs. Goosetree’s, we drove to the Forest Lake area where at one time I actually lived. This lake had houses all around it before the tornado and now the trees and homes have disappeared…all you see is lake. We heard an unbelievable story of survival about a dog that was in a home in the Forest Lake area during the tornado and they found him approximately 50 miles away in Midfield, Alabama with only a broken leg! Remarkable!

From Forest Lake we drove out onto 15^th Street and headed toward McFarland Blvd. Normally you can’t see the hospital, but there it was high in the distance. Speaking of the hospital, thank God it was missed and that the generators kicked on when power was lost.

On our way to Alberta, we passed the Cedar Crest Apartment complex (another place I once lived) and it was leveled along with the intersection of McFarland Blvd. and 13^th Street. One of my favorite spots that disappeared was Full Moon BBQ. The store manager saved several of the patrons by taking them into the walk-in cooler. Everything other than that cooler was gone.

As we drove toward Alberta, the Mayor informed us the tornado had widened and was only getting worse. It was hard to imagine anything being worse than what we’d already seen. Once we got off Kicker and back onto University Blvd. the Mayor told us that all the concrete power poles we were seeing were new, since the tornado destroyed the old ones.

The utility department really came through!

We stopped at Alberta Elementary School and met with Councilmen Kip Tyner and Bob Lundell along with other officials from the city and the University of Alabama Athletic Department. Thank God students and faculty had been released early before the building was turned into a pile of rubble.

Driving into Holt, the Mayor informed us that in this area alone fourteen people lost their lives that afternoon. It seems strange to consider us lucky, but seeing the devastation it’s a wonder anyone survived.

Later that afternoon we had the opportunity to visit with volunteers around the city and see first hand the work they’re doing to help the victims of the tornado. We met the folks behind the scenes with ‘Recover Tuscaloosa’ and visited with them before meeting the team behind ‘Give Tuscaloosa’ at the Chamber of Commerce. From there we stopped by the Emergency Relief Services building and warehouse, where we met volunteers who had traveled all the way from Maryland, Kentucky, Virginia and Louisiana, to name a few! Seeing them and the work that they’re doing for people they don’t even know in a place they’re not from is such a heartwarming endorsement of love.

We finished the day at the Belk Center visiting with those who had lost their homes. Men, women and children were sleeping in its gymnasium and eating out of its cafeteria. These folks are really having a tough time, but you know what – I never heard a complaint. In the aftermath of such devastation, the optimism is high, which I think is attributed to the love and help these suffering folks are getting from the volunteers.

Lets continue to give aid and keep Tuscaloosa in our thoughts and prayers!

-Joe Namath