Stories of Hope

Tuesday's deadly tornado outbreak in Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee is hard to come to grips with. Whenever something like this happens, it often leaves me thinking how some people survived, and others didn't. What was that moment of panic and split-second decision making like? I've been reading a lot about the storms that struck (not so far away) this week, and the stories seem endless. There's Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, that just finished rebuilding after a tornado hit that campus a few years ago. There's the story of a woman who fled her mobile home to a brick church next door when she saw the twister coming. The tornado leveled the church, killing the woman, and left her mobile home untouched. And then there's Kyson Stowell. The Associated Press reported Thursday the 11-month-old was found in a field 150 yards from his Tennessee home after the tornado struck. At first, firefighters combing the field where Kyson was found only discovered the body of his mother. After a second search of the field, they found Kyson, who at first they thought was a doll. Kyson's grandparents say they were in contact with his mother, Kerri, just before the storm hit. She was holding Kyson next to her side in a bathtub in their home. Moments later, everything changed. The stories coming out of Tennessee and the other surrounding states are sad, to say the least. Hopefully, the people and communities affected by Tuesday's storms can rally around each other and come back stronger than ever - and I hope they rally around baby Kyson, who lost his mom way too early in his young life. ~Meteorologist Jay Webb