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ENDLESS LOVE
Greenville, Kentucky—The deadly tornadoes had swept through Greenville just days before, and as residents began to tally their losses, they wore the stunned looks of the traumatized.
But when the bright yellow bus pulled up beside the temporary Red Cross and FEMA stations, parents and kids alike perked up at the sight of the portrait on its side—a laughing baby boy who's giving the thumbs- up sign.
"Mommy," yelled one youngster, "I want to go on the bus with the happy boy!" Inside, the kids descended on arts and crafts, DVDs, and games—anything to distract them from the nightmare memories of howling winds and falling trees.
"It's incredible," says Kathryn Martin, 29, who had driven the bus more than 70 miles, from Evansville, Indiana. "They just go off into la-la land; they can be kids again."
The mobile day-care center is named for Martin's little boy, C.J., who was killed along with two other family members when a tornado struck their town in 2005. He was two years old. The idea of helping other twister victims came to her in May 2006, after a tornado blasted Otwell, Indiana. Martin and a friend headed to the scene, and she spent the day with a family who had lost their home, soothing the kids simply by coloring with them.
"From then on," says Martin, who is married with three children, "we knew we had to do something."
After donations of more than $120,000, C.J.'s Bus was launched in August 2007 and two months later made its maiden voyage to Owensboro, Kentucky, for tornado relief.
Martin says she can think of no greater legacy for her son than to help children recover from the trauma of a tornado. "This bus is not about me, and it's not about C.J. anymore," she says. "It's about those next people we're going to help."
THE GOOD SON
Holland, Kentucky—Shirley Ennis, 58, said good night to her son Jerry, 32, and turned in for the evening. They were safe, it seemed; a tornado warning had been canceled at 1:30 a.m.
At 2 a.m., however, 160 mph winds hit the tiny farming community, picking up the Ennises' double-wide mobile home and tossing it into a gully 50 yards away. His leg broken, Jerry pulled himself from the rubble. But his mother was pinned under the wreckage of the house.
Dragging his leg behind him, Jerry found a pair of two-by-fours and created makeshift crutches. He hobbled to his 2003 Chevy Silverado in the driveway. Though most of its windows were blown out, the engine miraculously came to life.
A fallen power line stopped Jerry as he made his way slowly toward town, but firefighter Rickey Cooksey spotted him and offered assistance. "My mom's down there in the trailer," Jerry gasped. "You have to help her. Don't worry about me."
Cooksey and a group of emergency workers headed toward the gully, quickly locating Shirley. "It's cold under here, but I can breathe," she said. Two airbags were inflated to lift the wooden trailer frame off her, and the rescuers slid her to safety.
"Jerry is the hero," says Ed Taylor, the paramedic who drove him to the hospital. "His only request was to find his mother right away."
Shirley is made of pretty tough stuff herself. As soon as she's completely recovered—she has several broken bones—she hopes to return home. After all, the cows need tending.
TEAM EFFORT
Jackson, Tennessee—Union University varsity soccer player Josh Hanna was at home in his off-campus apartment when he heard what sounded like a freight train roaring by. Minutes later, the phone rang. "Union just got hit," his sister told him.
Hanna shot over to the stricken campus and spent an hour searching for survivors. Then he heard that a group of students—including his former roommates and some soccer players—were trapped in the rubble of the Watters Residential Complex, where he had lived the previous semester.
Emergency workers had arrived on the scene but couldn't get their heavy equipment into the collapsing building. The firefighters formed a bucket brigade, which Hanna and his teammates joined, passing slabs of cement, Sheetrock, and gravel away from the scene. "Some pieces took 15 guys to lift," Hanna says.
At 7:46 p.m., a siren wailed—another tornado might be on the way. Not one volunteer abandoned his place. Two men were eventually pulled out. A couple of hours later, one of Hanna's teammates was found, and then another. By 1:30 a.m., six students had been pulled out alive.
Although there were nine serious injuries on campus, there were no fatalities. "All I did," says Hanna, "was what I thought was right."
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