2008 Woodie Awards
Disaster strikes Union
Melissa Gibson
Issue date: 2/13/08 Section: News
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“I’ve asked our staff in University Relations to establish a ‘Union Fund,’ with the view that all gifts received will be forwarded to Union for general use in recovering from the tornado,” Westmoreland said in a campus wide email to faculty and students on Wednesday, Feb. 6.
Executive Director of Communications Phillip Poole said that Westmoreland has been in continual conversation with the president of Union, David S. Dockery. Poole advised that students wait to help until they hear more about the situation.
Many Samford students have friends at Union who were affected by the category-four tornado. It came as a surprise with winds between 166 and 200 miles per hour.
Some Samford students have family members at Union, such as junior business major Matt Mogle.
“My mom called me that afternoon to tell me about it. I was just glad that my brother (Mark) was OK, but I was shocked that a tornado had hit the campus,” he said. “It’s a miracle that nobody died. My brother told me (the tornado) was huge.”
The tornado damaged seventeen buildings along with 80 percent of the dorms. A total of 51 students were taken to the hospital, and nine with serious injuries were kept overnight. No deaths occurred.
Senior journalism and mass communications major Lauren Steele’s best friend, Kevin Furniss, attends Union and was one of the students who was trapped for three and a half hours under two floors of rubble. He was in the boy’s commons, a building that sustained heavy damage. Furniss was trapped from 7 p.m. to 10:42 p.m.
“(When I first heard about it) I kind of panicked. My best friend here at Samford also knows Kevin, and she called him to make sure he was OK. The paramedics answered wanting to know if she knew him,” she said. “They said she should call his parents and that he was being taken to Jackson-Madison General Hospital. She called me because we didn’t know his condition at all. It was a huge disaster of emotions.”
Another student who was trapped in the commons with Furniss was Jason Kaspar, a former Samford student. Kaspar was only enrolled at Union for three days before the tornado hit.
According to Steele, he was trapped under the rubble for four and a half hours. One and a half of those hours he was trapped alone. Steele said Kaspar has suffered emotionally and physically.
Matt Taylor, a freshman at Union, was one of 13 students trapped in fallen rubble.
“We were thinking ‘this is just another (storm) that’s going to miss us,’” he said.
Taylor was trying to help his roommate get everyone downstairs.“We were just being guys. We were standing by the door looking at the sky when it hit,” he said.
Taylor said he heard someone yell “run” so the boys tried to reach the closet of the Resident Director’s apartment.
“I went to shut the door so I wouldn’t get wet and, all of a sudden, I was being sucked out the door. I grabbed the doorframe and tried to pull myself back in,” Taylor said.
He said there was a brief second when the wind stopped, and everything became quiet. He tried to run back but couldn’t because the wind picked up again.
“A concrete slab fell on top of me, and it was really quiet for a few minutes,” Taylor said.
After an hour and a half, he was rescued and taken immediately to the hospital. After a night in the hospital, Taylor is home in Nashville hobbling around on crutches.
Because of the destruction, classes are on hold until Feb. 18. Taylor said, “Union is such a big part of the community that everybody wants it to start again. It’s like a big family up there.”
Mogle’s brother is at Union aiding students who are still on campus. “He is leading people out and helping clean up. He’s coming back (Wednesday) and is actually coming to a few Step Sing shows.”
Steele made a trip to Union to see the damage last week and helped pick up the campus.
“(Furniss) left the hospital (Monday) and is back in Memphis. He can’t walk and will need rehab. His kidneys were failing, but they are functioning normally. He’s got a lot of pain in his back and legs, but he should make a full recovery,” she said.
“It’s a 100 percent miracle that they are still alive. When I visited I saw where they were stuck, and I have no idea how they are alive.”