PAISLEY, Fla. (ABP) — Like a lot of close-knit churches in rural Florida, the 100-member First Baptist Church of Paisley is small enough that regular attenders are missed when they don't show up on Sunday. But the absence of the 15-year-old Downing triplets, a vital part of the congregation for almost a decade, was more like an open wound when the congregation gathered for worship Feb. 4.
David Downing was killed when a powerful tornado stabbed down through the early-morning darkness Feb. 2, ripping the family's mobile home to pieces and dropping a tree where the family slept.
The triplets' parents — Donald, 46, and Carla, 35, also were killed. A second triplet, Heather, was severely injured and remains hospitalized. The third, Kayla, slept unharmed at an aunt's house.
“It's just terrible, the lives that were lost,” lamented Mary Miller of the 12 people killed in the nearby Lake Mack neighborhood. Miller, like everyone else at First Baptist, knew the Downing triplets well. The parents did not attend church but made sure their children did — faithfully since soon after they started school.
Church members and school classmates described the Downing kids as “sweet,” polite and well behaved. “We loved those children,” said Pastor John Roszak. “David was just a sweet, sweet boy.”
Roszak also was acquainted with the father, Donald Downing, although he couldn't get him to join the kids at church. “He loved to hunt and fish. He was a good ol' Florida boy.”
Heather Downing “truly knows the Lord,” said Sue Hartzog, one of Heather's teachers at the church. “She's always interested in Bible study. She's just a wonderful young woman. Heather was real strong in the Lord.”
The Downing family, like many in the low, rolling hills that divide Florida's east and west coasts, lived close to the land on the banks of a lake surrounded by horse farms, small homesteads and thick woods. Paisley is far removed — more by lifestyle than by distance — from the bustle of the vacation mecca of Orlando 40 miles south.
Yet the hamlet of 700 people suffered the deadliest blow from Florida's worst tornado outbreak in a decade; 12 of the storm's 20 dead got their mail from the tiny Paisley post office.
The Downings weren't the only family with ties to First Baptist who experienced tragedy. Seven-year-old Jacob Nolan, who also attended the church, died in his mobile home along with his father, Billy, 37. His mother and sister survived.
Last November, First Baptist held a fund-raiser to help pay hospital bills for Jacob, who lost an eye after being kicked by a horse.
The small sanctuary of First Baptist was packed Feb. 4, as church members prayed to understand the tornado's random destruction and half a dozen reporters sought a glimpse of faith tested by tragedy.
At the door, greeters welcomed friends and journalists alike with hardy hugs. Inside, the mood was far from somber as members paused from worship to embrace each other and their guests — a weekly custom that seemed as normal as the country-gospel choruses they sang.
A five-guitar band, which included the pastor and elementary school principal, played and sang a “special” they had hurriedly learned — the 1965 Pete Seeger classic “Turn! Turn! Turn!” which captures the words of Ecclesiastes 3: “To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. … A time to laugh, a time to heal.”
A deacon prayed: “Father, all we can do this morning is holler 'Help!' but that's all we need to do.”
Roszak brought a report from Heather's bedside: “She said she can't wait to get back to church.” At the end of the service, the congregation took up an impromptu “love offering” for the Downing family. “We want to help our little sister in the hospital,” the pastor said. “I know this little bit will help.”
In his sermon, Roszak encouraged the congregation to ask God why tragedy had struck, but he added answers won't come easily. God alone “sees the whole picture,” he said.
“When you go through circumstances like this, you can come out better or bitter,” he advised. He praised the church for responding with acts of love and kindness, such as the relief supplies Mary Miller was collecting in the adjacent fellowship hall.
“I've never seen so much harmony as in the past few days,” Roszak said. “It's like a colony of ants or bees around here.”
The youth of the church spent the prior day helping Miller and others organize relief supplies and load them into cars to take to Lake Mack. They were at it again after church Sunday, as furniture, food and toiletries continued to stream in. The supplies weren't getting out as fast; police had temporarily closed the streets of the devastated neighborhoods to all but residents and emergency workers.
A couple of miles away, Bill and Karen Barth sat on the steps leading to the their 25-year-old Lake Mack home, the only mobile home still upright within the path of destruction. Hurricane straps over the top of the home kept it on the ground, while all the others on the street shredded in the 150-mph-plus winds.
Above the steps, a two-by-four was lodged in the exterior wall of the home. The tornado-driven spear protruded into the bedroom, right above where Karen Barth was sleeping at 3 a.m. Feb 2.
The couple knew instantly it was a tornado when the sound woke them from sleep, Bill Barth said. He held onto the bedroom's doorframe as the tornado tugged and shook the mobile home. “We were ready for the ride!” Barth said. “We could feel it. It lifted it up and set it back down.”
After a few seconds the tornado passed, taking with it the attached porch and other parts of the home. His parents' 25-foot travel trailer, which had been parked about 50 feet away, was now lodged inside his home, he said. Fortunately, Gene Barth and his wife had left a few hours earlier for a short trip and were not inside the RV.
Bill Barth donned shoes, grabbed a flashlight and went climbing through the rubble to look for his neighbors.
Most others had fared much worse. The dozen or so homes directly in the tornado's path were mostly unrecognizable, splintered by the category EF-3 twister that came roaring across Bear Lake and up the eastern bank, mowing through the homes that rimmed its shore — including the one where the Downings slept.
Concrete-block homes, mobile homes and wood-frame structures alike were shredded or leveled. Toys and heavy appliances were commingled with furniture and photo albums and strewn for a quarter mile or more along the tornado's westward path — a swath 100 yards wide.
Cars and trucks were overturned and sandwiched together, coming to rest against tree trunks. Forty-foot hardwood trees were stripped of everything except foot-wide boughs. Smaller trees were twisted off at their trunks.
“I could hear people screaming, but nobody was asking for help,” Barth recalled. An avid hunter, he said he scanned the debris with his flashlight looking for eyes in the darkness.
Barth and others began pulling the trapped ones from the wreckage. “A couple of them couldn't be moved,” he said. Others were already dead.
“Everybody we could find we brought over here,” he said, pointing to the twisted frame of his home. Now blown as much as six feet from its foundation and left with gaping holes, it provided the only shelter while the survivors waited most of an hour for help to arrive.
Two days later, the neighborhood is now alive with the buzz of chainsaws, the “beep-beep” of heavy equipment, and the shouts of Red Cross and emergency workers. Volunteers pick through the debris for salvageable belongings — pictures, dishes, CDs and twisted tricycles are among the larger items, which are placed gently on makeshift tables or bare foundations and covered with tarps to protect against the rains that have persisted after the storm.
Bill and Karen Barth have learned from their insurance company that the mortgage on their property will be paid off, but they'll receive nothing for their mobile home, which has since been condemned. “We thought we had insurance, but it only covered the land,” Bill Barth said.
“That's the cards we're dealt,” he said. They plan to rebuild anyway and insist they're not looking to the government for assistance. “I'm not bitter about it. That's just the way it is.”
His parents aborted their trip and returned to help pull their travel trailer out of Bill's house. It's damaged but probably useable, although a smaller, older RV in the backyard is upside down and wrapped around a tree. Gene doesn't expect to get any insurance money for that one. “I just know how it is,” he said.
But Gene feels fortunate nonetheless.
“The good Lord saw to it that we were going somewhere else [when the tornado hit]. Who can explain it? He has blessed us.”
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