“Do you need police, fire or medical,” asked a 911 dispatcher.
The caller responded: “Probably all of them. We just had a tornado to hit the house. It’s all tore up.”
That was one of the 54 calls Burke County 911 received from 6 to 7 p.m. on Jan. 11, the day an EF2 tornado touched down in eastern Burke County.
The twister’s 130 mph winds left a 3.6-mile path of destruction that was 300 yards wide at places, according to the National Weather Service. The storm caused an estimated $13.4 million in damage to 168 buildings, but injured just five people and no one was killed.
The emotional 911 calls reveal panicked residents reaching out to emergency personnel in the wake of disaster. They also reveal compassion as each caller’s concern seems more for his or her neighbors than self.
One female caller told 911: “The trailers are everywhere. Everything is destroyed… I can’t find my neighbor and her trailer’s gone.”
Another caller described a scene of devastation, with overturned trailers and downed trees. In the background someone screams: “I’m scared.”
A male caller was reporting the tornado when he realized the damage his home sustained.
“Oh, Lord,” he said. “The building is gone out here. It’s just gone.”
Communications crew leader Beverly Roland described the night in a word: “Chaos.”
The storm hit at shift change and Roland was one of two who stayed to help the three-person, third shift field calls.
“It’s real difficult,” she said. “Everything you’ve got is ringing. It’s just trying to get to all of them.”
Even with the more than 50 calls to 911 in the first hour, and the countless other calls to the non-emergency line, Roland said they didn’t miss a call.
“The staff that was working has years of experience,” she explained.
Roland said the calls didn’t taper off until 8:30 p.m.
One issue for 911 after the tornado was people using 911 for non-emergency calls.
Dispatchers were fielding emergency calls about power outages when collapsed homes were the more pressing issue, Roland said.
If your lights go out, call the power company. Roland says that’s all 911 can do. Calling the power company directly leaves dispatchers free for more important calls and cuts them out as a middle man.
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