Jason Simpson, who was a meteorologist for ABC 33/40 during the Super Outbreak, wrote the following on the AlabamaWx Weather Blog on May 1, 2011:
There are a host of small towns that were greatly impacted, and in some cases, completely wiped out by Wednesday’s tornadoes. My wife and I just returned from a supply run to Eoline in Bibb County. Eoline is a small community on the side of US 82 a few miles northwest of the Alabama Highway 5 intersection with US 82 in Brent.
We loaded up at the Alabaster Wal-Mart along with our neighbors Dave and Elizabeth Furst. They asked where we would be taking the supplies, and I just told them we would load up and head wherever the Lord led us. I felt like we should go to Eoline. As we drove up US 82, I knew we would quickly come up into the damage path of the EF-3 tornado, but I had no idea exactly where we would take the supplies. Fortunately, it was obvious once we got there.
The Eoline Baptist Church is still standing right next to the demolished fire department; many homes are destroyed in this small community, and according to George Marchant, the pastor of the Assembly of God Worship Center in Centreville, people are walking around in a daze still unable to believe that they have lost everything.
Pastor Marchant and I had a conversation while we unloaded the truck, and he told me how he had grown up in Eoline and had wanted life to slow down so people could really know each other again; they had even planned a community cook-out for the summer. On this Sunday, it is happening, but obviously not the way they had expected. He explained how the church building was open as a distribution point for the community, and he said he knew it had to be God bringing the supplies to Eoline because numerous trucks had passed them headed for Tuscaloosa.
One thing he said to me as we were leaving that will always stick with me was this: “God didn’t bring the storm, but he brought all of us together after it.”
Donna Kornegay, whose husband was the volunteer fire department chief, was interviewed on WVUA on September 20, 2011. She said the site of the destroyed firehouse was cleared entirely. “We’ve even demolished the slabs.”
Plans were laid out to rebuild and occupy a new structure on March 13, 2012. That was the first election date after the tornado, and since the firehouse was the precinct, they needed it ready. Per tuscaloosanews.com, the new station would include a safe room measuring 20 feet by 36 feet. It would hold 140 people. “The total cost of the new safe room will be about $188,000. A Federal Emergency Management Agency grant of $139,070 will be used to cover the cost, with the rest to be paid by the community.”
Several fundraisers were coordinated to help raise money for this staple in the Eoline community. Donna said in the WVUA interview that the first community fundraiser raised about $12,000. In Beaverdam, OH, a volunteer fire department heard about the destruction in Eoline on the CBS 42 website. They organized a drive to collect money for the fire station. Anne Allgire, Head of Beaverdam Fire Auxiliary, was interviewed. “I just feel like, they’re more or less a sister department. It’s a small town like Beaverdam and we just wanted to help a smaller community to get them back on their feet so they can help the people down there.” During the six-hour fundraiser, they raised over $3,000.
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