Cedars, October 2020

touched down in their area. The Bergtholds had 60 seconds to get to safety. Laini’s dad grabbed her little sister out of bed and shouted for her brother to come downstairs. They rushed into their pantry which had been designed as a storm shelter at the urging of her mother. “We made it just in time,” Bergthold said. Bergthold crouched over her little sister with the rest of her family huddled around them. The wind was ripping their house apart outside, so much so that they couldn’t tell where each sound was coming from. “I was scanning my brain for some kind of Scripture to say or something to recite and I just had nothing,” Bergthold said. “Literally I just remember taking really, really deep breaths. I just kept saying, ‘OK, God, OK, God,’ because my little sister was crying and everyone else was just silent. I was just trying not to have a panic attack.” At this point the windows were shattering. Rain was pouring into the house because the roof had come off. Yet the pantry remained solid. The glass dishes above them didn’t so much as rattle. “I was very scared,” Bergthold said. “I didn’t know what was going to be there when I walked out, but I never felt like I was about to die.” Josie Dicks, Bergthold’s roommate who also lives in Chattanooga, said she was in contact with Bergthold as much as possible during the storm. “She was like, ‘I think our house is gone,’” Dicks said. After an hour, the Bergthold family held onto their faith and ventured out into the moment that would change their lives. “I just remember walking outside and I did not recognize anything. I didn’t feel like I was at my house, I didn’t feel like I was on my street. There were power lines everywhere and the sky was completely brown and a very ominous color,” Bergthold said. “My house looked totally destroyed.” Her brother’s bedroom was still intact, so they moved mattresses into his room and tried to sleep but were unable to. “My dad was having heart palpitations, so we were taking turns walking with him,” she said. Eventually some sleep came, and at 8 a.m. Bergthold woke up in disbelief that the events of the last night were real. In the daylight, the extent of the damage was more evident. Of the 75 trees on their beautiful property, not a single one was left. “I remember having this feeling of acceptance, walking outside and being like, ‘Okay, that happened, and we’re going to get through it. This is reality now and I have no idea what this means, but we’re going to get through this,’” she said. Their street was blocked by fallen trees, so some friends walked four miles with equipment to come help the Bergtholds clear the way so more help could come. They had been in quarantine for so long that the joy in seeing help arrive was all the more heightened by the lack of social interaction. “I hope you guys are doing hugs,” laughed one of their family friends as they hugged and cried together. “Even though that first morning was so hard, there were some really sweet moments too,” Bergthold said. “That’s just when I felt God’s mercy. My family just prayed together, and we were like, ‘All right, we’ve got work to do, we’re going to start cleaning up.’ And that’s what we did.” Dicks came to help with the cleanup process on Tuesday. “I found anniversary cards from neighbors down the street that Photo courtesy of Laini Bergthold Laini Bergthold sits on a fallen tree after a tornado devastated her property in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Fall 2020