JACKSON, Tenn. (ABP) — Baptist-affiliated Union University was one of the hardest-hit spots as deadly tornadoes raked the Mid-South Feb. 5 — the same day as Mardi Gras celebrations and the “Super Tuesday” primary elections.
Among those killed was Fountaine Bayer, a member of First Church of Clinton, Ark. Her son and daughter-in-law, John and Brenda Bayer, are International Mission Board missionaries in Mexico. John's sister-in-law, Sharon Ann Bayer of Clinton, was injured in the storm and was in surgery Feb. 6 at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences hospital in Little Rock, Ark.
The Tennessee Baptist Convention-related school's campus sustained extensive damage as an evening tornado tore across the north side of Jackson, Tenn. The city of about 65,000 is located midway between Memphis and Nashville.
The Jackson Sun reported Feb. 6 that emergency workers rescued 13 students trapped in a demolished dormitory complex.
Union spokesman Tim Ellsworth told the paper that 51 students were transported to the hospital. While nine students had serious injuries, none of the injuries were life-threatening, he said. In an interview posted Feb. 6 on the website of local television station WBBJ, Ellsworth said school officials had confirmed that all of the seriously injured students “are going to be fine.”
However, he added, the campus “really looks like a bomb went off here.” He told the Baptist and Reflector, the state convention's newspaper, that the university community was still in a state of shock the morning after the storm — but also a state of relief.
“It is incredible that no one has been killed,” he said.
Union's two major residential complexes were mostly destroyed, and the roof was blown off one of the main academic buildings. That left the building flooded, according to Ellsworth.
Local churches, as well as several of Union's peer institutions, have offered their resources to the stricken campus. Samford University, an Alabama Baptist school located in Birmingham, has set up a fund to assist with relief and rebuilding efforts. Officials at Rhodes College, a Presbyterian school in Memphis, Tenn., have offered their assistance. Rhodes President William Troutt had previously led Belmont University, a Tennessee Baptist school in Nashville.
Union University President David Dockery, in a Feb. 6 press conference, said the college received $2.6 million worth of damage from a tornado in 2002. The Feb. 5 storm was “15 times worse than that,” he said.
Ellsworth said classes have been canceled and will not resume before Feb. 18. “It will be a long time before the campus will be fully operational,” he said.
Storm victims off Union's campus were not so fortunate. The same tornado killed two elderly residents in rural parts of Madison County, according to a Feb. 6 report in the Jackson paper.
And dozens of other tornadoes killed residents across the lower Mississippi Valley. As of midday Feb. 6, the Associated Press reported that 48 people had been confirmed dead in four states: 24 in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama. The National Weather service received reports of 60 tornadoes in the region between the afternoon of Feb. 5 and the morning of Feb. 6.
That makes the event the deadliest tornado outbreak — and one of the largest — in more than 20 years. The death toll is even higher than the May 3, 1999, outbreak famous for a massive tornado that laid waste to large sections of Oklahoma City.
In Arkansas, the towns of Clinton and Atkins reportedly sustained direct hits from storms. Charlie Warren, editor of the Arkansas Baptist News, said Feb. 6 that he had not yet confirmed reports of the storms directly affecting any Arkansas Baptist congregations or institutions. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that one storm destroyed a Baptist church in rural Pope County, but Warren said that congregation is not affiliated with the state convention.
He said Arkansas Baptist disaster-relief officials were meeting that morning to coordinate information and begin formulating a response.
Several presidential candidates, in delivering victory speeches after the largest day of presidential primaries in the nation's history, asked supporters to pray for the storm's victims. New York Sen. Hillary Clinton and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee both have strong ties to Arkansas, one of the hardest-hit states. Clinton's Democratic rival, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, also asked supporters to pray for those affected by the bad weather.
President Bush took a moment during a brief Feb. 6 appearance at the Department of Agriculture to mention the storms' toll and promise federal help. “Prayers can help, and so can the government,” Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know that the American people stand with them.”
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— Compiled by Lonnie Wilkey of the Baptist and Reflector and Robert Marus of Associated Baptist Press. ABP will update this story as more information becomes available.