I have to share this touching story that came in by e-mail this morning:
I happened across your blog this morning because I was doing some "Googling" on Hurricane Frederick. I have a particular interest in that hurricane. I grew up in South Carolina and lived there for 36 years. I know hurricanes fairly well having lived through an exciting night with Hugo and the many hurricanes we've experienced since moving here to Forida a few years ago. But no hurricane has yet replaced Frederick in significance to me.
In 1979, I had just turned 19. I had recently been laid off from a construction job and was looking forward to starting at the University of South Carolina as a freshman the next January. My father, Isaac (Ike) Lee, had, only a couple of months before, started a new job with a trucking company hauling concrete pipe. (The recession of the 1970s had left him mostly unemployed for about two years.) The pipe plant was in Columbia and the construction site to which he delivered on a daily basis was in Atlanta. He would leave every morning around 4:00 to be at the site in time to meet the construction crew, unload, and be back home around 2:00 p.m. September 13, though, was to be different.
Twelve days after his 45th birthday, my Dad was leaving the job site around 10:00 a.m. and the remnants of Frederick were blowing through. By time it reached Atlanta, Frederick was a tropical storm, but the worst damage done there was by the tornadoes spawned by it. That was what caught him.
According to another driver following behind him, as he crossed an overpass on I-285 near the Atlanta airport, his truck was blown off the bridge and onto highway surface below, killing my Dad instantly. Weather reports had shown signs of a tornado in the area at about that time. Because there was no sign sign of collision with the bridge, other than a tire scuff on the curb, accident investigators believed that a tornado had lifted the truck and empty trailer over the guard rail and dropped it, nose first, onto the road below.
My family has ever since had a great respect for the power of nature and the value of each individual life taken in such events. Too often natural disasters are only interesting if the damage in dollars and lives reach record numbers. But we must always remember that even when there is "minor" damage and few lost lives, those results are life shattering to the families involved.
I don't live in your city, so I'm not familiar with your television work, but thanks for the story on your blog, and for the professional coverage of the real stories, not just the pretty reporters in the wind.
James A. Lee
Bartram Trail High School
Social Studies Department Chair
I happened across your blog this morning because I was doing some "Googling" on Hurricane Frederick. I have a particular interest in that hurricane. I grew up in South Carolina and lived there for 36 years. I know hurricanes fairly well having lived through an exciting night with Hugo and the many hurricanes we've experienced since moving here to Forida a few years ago. But no hurricane has yet replaced Frederick in significance to me.
In 1979, I had just turned 19. I had recently been laid off from a construction job and was looking forward to starting at the University of South Carolina as a freshman the next January. My father, Isaac (Ike) Lee, had, only a couple of months before, started a new job with a trucking company hauling concrete pipe. (The recession of the 1970s had left him mostly unemployed for about two years.) The pipe plant was in Columbia and the construction site to which he delivered on a daily basis was in Atlanta. He would leave every morning around 4:00 to be at the site in time to meet the construction crew, unload, and be back home around 2:00 p.m. September 13, though, was to be different.
Twelve days after his 45th birthday, my Dad was leaving the job site around 10:00 a.m. and the remnants of Frederick were blowing through. By time it reached Atlanta, Frederick was a tropical storm, but the worst damage done there was by the tornadoes spawned by it. That was what caught him.
According to another driver following behind him, as he crossed an overpass on I-285 near the Atlanta airport, his truck was blown off the bridge and onto highway surface below, killing my Dad instantly. Weather reports had shown signs of a tornado in the area at about that time. Because there was no sign sign of collision with the bridge, other than a tire scuff on the curb, accident investigators believed that a tornado had lifted the truck and empty trailer over the guard rail and dropped it, nose first, onto the road below.
My family has ever since had a great respect for the power of nature and the value of each individual life taken in such events. Too often natural disasters are only interesting if the damage in dollars and lives reach record numbers. But we must always remember that even when there is "minor" damage and few lost lives, those results are life shattering to the families involved.
I don't live in your city, so I'm not familiar with your television work, but thanks for the story on your blog, and for the professional coverage of the real stories, not just the pretty reporters in the wind.
James A. Lee
Bartram Trail High School
Social Studies Department Chair
on September 13, 2006, 12:29 pm
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