T RI BUT E TO R ECOVER Y
by Charlotte Kovalchuk • charlotte@myjarrell.com photos by Charlotte Vancil and Scott Beckwith
A Legacy of Love and Strength Remembering the Tragedy that United the Jarrell Community
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tanding on her front porch on May 27, 1997, LaDonna Peterson was struck by how heavy and hot the air felt that morning in Jarrell. “I’ve lived here all my life and it never felt like that,” she says. She recalls telling her husband, "I sure hope it rains to get rid of all this,” as she saw him off to work. The forecast that day included thunderstorms with heavy rainfall and potential strong winds. Jarrell is no stranger to turbulent weather, with tornados and powerful winds an ongoing chapter in the town’s history. One of the earliest recorded twisters destroyed the Jarrell Methodist Church in 1926, followed by a tornado in 1955 that caused significant damage to buildings. In 1989, an F-3 injured 28 people and killed one. No one in Jarrell, however, was prepared for the one that left all those behind.
OUTBREAK IN CTX There were 20 tornados in Central Texas that day. Sixty miles north, several—spotted in McLennan and Bell counties—moved south towards Jarrell. At Windy Hill School, just east of I-35 in Jarrell, teacher Priscilla King hunkered down with other staff, nearly 100 preschool children, and some highway drivers. Teachers gathered babies in a portable crib and calmed older kids with games under tables. As Priscilla watched from a window, a skinny, rope-like tornado spun across the landscape. When it subsided, she and the rest of Jarrell breathed a sigh of relief. 10
Seconds later, a cloud began forming on the horizon. It reached up to the dark storm wall across the sky as three twisters joined forces in the mass, spawning an F-5 tornado— the rarest, strongest type of tornado. At 4pm, starting at the corner of County Roads 305 and 307, the storm grew almost a half-mile wide with winds more than 260 miles an hour. It whipped through farms and pastures, grinding up everything in its path—homes, barns, windmills, crops, and trees. From her home on First Street, Charlotte Vancil stood mesmerized by the dark tower churning west in the distance. “You couldn’t take your eyes off it,” she says. “You were just in awe.” She got her camera to capture the scene. A few miles away, Virginia Davidson was doing the same thing, until she realized the tornado was headed straight towards her.
VIRGINIA'S MIRACLE Virginia was mowing her lawn when she spotted a skinny rope
M AY 2021 MY JA R R ELL M O NT HLY
trailing down from the sky in the distance. She started snapping pictures, certain no one would believe she’d seen a tornado and that it would disappear soon. But the rope got bigger. Forget the pictures, she thought, and ran inside her house. As she huddled in the bathtub with a blanket, she remembered some paychecks she had left on the porch. Grabbing the checks, she shoved them in her purse and slipped it under her body in the bathtub. With the blanket over her head, she waited, scared to death and wondering, Why can’t they stop it? The first thing she heard was a pop as her front porch light shattered. The whole house started shaking, and she thought the ceiling would crush her. Suddenly, everything went dark and she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face for what seemed like forever. Am I going to know I’m dead or will I just be gone? she wondered. She felt her house being lifted and moved downhill. Then everything stopped. Oh, I’m still alive. I’m OK, she thought right before the world
