Survivors remember 10 years later

On March 1, 2007, St. Beulah Baptist Church member Deveda Johnson was preparing for a youth conference at the church, while Cynthia Diann Grase, the church's secretary, waited for her daughter, Roxanne, to come in from school.

Johnson was planning to take a trip to Dothan to get supplies in preparation conference when she looked outside noticed the weather had turned.

"Then when I went to the door, I noticed the weather," Johnson said. "(The clouds were) like a sharp cone. I ran to tell Diann to come look. She said, 'That's going (another) way, you can beat it.'"

When Roxanne Grase came home from school, the three decided to move to another part of the church. They eventually made it to the secretary's office, a room with no windows.

"We were actually trying to get downstairs," Diann Grase said. "We couldn't get downstairs because we started hearing glass and stuff shatter, so we just got right down on the floor in that office. We sat right down on the floor until it got calm, and once it got calm, we got up and moved forward."

Roxanne Grase said she could only think about going home throughout the experience.

"I told Diann, 'Let's tie our clothes together. That wind is blowing heavy,'" Johnson said. "In the office where we were, it looked like sunshine just came in. I said, 'Diann, the walls are coming apart.' She said, "No. God's not going to let those walls come apart.' And he didn't."

The church sustained major damage to the choir room, which is connected to the secretary's office and the children's ministry, in addition to other less severe damage, during the storm.

Once they felt the weather had calmed, the group searched for a light in order to walk through the church. Diann Grase knew she had a candle, but could find no matches to light it.

Johnson remembered she had a light on her cellphone, and they used it to make their way to the front of the church through the sanctuary.

As the group walked through the building, Johnson heard a voice yelling at anyone inside to not light anything.

"As I walked out (through the main sanctuary), I heard someone," Johnson said. "'Don't strike a match! Gas line’s wide open!' Then, I went out there, and this fireman was out there."

The man was a volunteer firefighter with the Level Plains Volunteer Fire Department, according to Johnson.

"I just grabbed him, hugged him and told him thank you," Johnson said. "God saved us. We were looking for a match to light the candle; we weren't thinking about the gas line being open."

Diann Grase said the three were not aware of the extent of damage from the tornado. They learned about damage on neighboring streets and Enterprise High School after they got out of the church.

"When I first opened the door and I looked outside, I didn't realize and started saying, 'Oh my gosh. What has happened?'" Diann Grase said. "By that time, we looked across at (Carroll Elementary School), and some of the employees were walking. They said, 'We're about to walk to the high school.' That's when we learned what had happened at the high school."

Lillie Ward lived near the high school when her house was destroyed by that same tornado.

Ward lived by herself near her daughter on West Watts Street in 2007. She remembered hearing about bad weather in other areas, but was not aware of the weather in Enterprise.

"I started (to leave) my house," Ward said. "I got to my porch, and I saw a lot of weeds and everything in the sky just going around and around and around.

"I went back in, and as soon as I got back in my living room, the top went off my house. It started raining on me."

She described furniture falling on her foot, causing her to lose her shoe when she tried to leave her house during the storm.

"I was all alone, and I was trying to make it to my neighbor's house next door, which has two stories. I couldn't make it there, so I just stood in the hallway. It had four doors that led to four rooms. I just stood there until it was all over with."

Her house was destroyed, leaving her front porch and one wall. She never rebuilt her house. She was eventually able to get out of her house through her "garage," a lean-to that was attached to her house at the time.

She was housed in a hotel for two weeks before she moved in with her brother in Elba for almost six months. She then returned to Enterprise.

In the days and weeks following the tornado, Johnson, Diann Grase and Ward all said the community and the city as a whole came together.

Diann Grase said the event brought St. Beulah Church and the community closer.

"Once we experienced that, it brought not only the church together, but the whole community together," she said. "That was a different experience for us. We’re still standing."

Johnson said the city became a "melting pot" of people offering to help others.

"There was no fussing; no one was complaining," Johnson said. "It was just like a melting pot. We just came in there and (asked), 'What can I do for you?'"

Ward echoed Johnson's words.

"Especially the city," Ward said about people and communities coming together. "And others who were not affected, they helped us."

For Diann Grase and the others, it does not feel as if 10 years has passed. They have flourished, they have learned from that day and they continue to look toward the future.

"I didn't realize it had been 10 years," Grase said. "It's felt like the years have gone by so fast. It's a blessing that we were able to survive the storm. He left us here for a reason."