A true חַג הַפֶּסַח (Passover) story

How the plans for the Trail of Tears Memorial at Council Oak Park in Tulsa, OK (and its architect) miraculously survived the Good Friday Tornado Outbreak of 2009

As the final construction drawings for the monument were being electronically transmitted to a reprographics company in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a half mile wide tornado struck the author’s neighborhood. It was one of 85 twisters that ravaged the Southeastern United States that day.

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect & City Planner

My neighborhood in Jasper, GA after the April 10, 2009 Good Friday Tornado

The extremely talented Creek sculptor, Dan Brook, and I have never met in person . . . even after all these years . . . but you would have thought that we had been partners for a decade in a design firm, when we worked together on the design of the Trail of Tears Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I have been the Architect for the design or restoration of well over a thousand structures, but none approached the title of “team effort” as this one. All the collaboration was carried out via the telephone and internet.

We never had an argument during the design process. Each of us came up with ideas that the other thought was a better idea. Yet . . . because we were both Creeks, every little detail had to be both beautiful and symbolic of our ancient cultural heritage. It had to be perfect.

Dan is one of those rare modern sculptors, who can also create lifelike human figures.

That is not to say that the process went like butter over hot pancakes. We had a budget and deadlines to meet, but also had considerable problems within the bureaucracy of the Muscogee-Creek Nation . . . not with the tribal officials, who we worked directly with . . . but with other employees, who were hearing rumors.

One lady called me up out of the blue and yelled at me, “We are tired of you white folks stealing our heritage!” I tried to assure her that Dan was a citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation and I had cousins in the MCN, plus the Seminole Tribe of Florida. My great-grandparents could not sign the Dawes Rolls, because they did not live in Oklahoma. Over 5,000 Creeks IN Oklahoma refused to sign the rolls, because they realized that the scheme was really a scam by the federal government to steal most of the Creek’s land.

In exasperation, I told her that my mother’s family were Creek Wind Clan and Uchee Water Clan . . . that three direct ancestors had signed the 1773 Treaty of Augusta. She responded with something like “No, you are in the White Clan.”

At the time, I didn’t know that my biological father was a relatively famous person on the Board of Directors of the MCN foundation, which dispersed tribal funds for cultural heritage projects! That might have shut her up! LOL She didn’t believe me about Dan’s and my Creek heritage, though. Eventually she hung up the phone, still raging.

I did not have employees while practicing architecture in Jasper. I used a large bedroom for operating the computer, while much of the basement was occupied by a shop for building museum models and a conference room for meeting with clients. There was also a reinforced concrete storm shelter in the basement.

I glanced out the window then had time to say “Oh [expletive deleted]!”

Almost Gone with the Wind!

At any rate, by April 10, 2009, we were down to modifying some construction details for the pre-fabricated decorative concrete rim, which symbolized the traditional hearth in Pre-Columbian Creek homes. By 6:15 PM, Dan and I had finalized the changes on the phone. The plans were due at the offices of the Oklahoma Centennial Commission on April 15. I began converting the CADD files into PLOT files, which are used by machines, which plot out the drawings for blackline prints.

Back then the internet was much, much slower, while computers and internet connections were incapable of transmitting more than one internet program at a time. When I turned on the internet to send the drawings to a reprographic company in Tulsa, there was a tornado warning for a community about 12 miles due west of me in Ranger, GA. I was not worried because tornadoes in northern Georgia typically travel from southwest to northeast. This tornado was probably going to hit Ellijay, GA . . . about 16 miles north of my house.

The National Weather Service did have a Severe Thunderstorm Warning out for Jasper, where I lived, so opted to immediately start transmitting the drawings in case lightning knocked out the power. With 2009 technology, I could not watch the WSB-TV weather radar screen and simultaneously send drawings.

As the clocked reached 6:30 PM . . . the beginning of the Jewish Pasach (Passover) at our longitude, the sky turned jet black and the winds began blow violently. The last drawing plot file was near the end of the long transmission. I still was not concerned about the Tornado Warning in Ranger. Our city’s tornado sirens would give me plenty of time to go down to the storm shelter.

As the computer monitor stated “transmission completed,” the electric power and internet went out. I glanced out the window . . . “Oh expletive deleted!” There were no tornado sirens and no time to race down the stairs to the storm shelter. My three herd dogs raced into the office room and crouched under the drafting table, thinking that somehow, I would protect them.

It seemed like an eternity that we were literally inside the eye of a tornado. The house shook . . . objects flew pass the window or struck the roof, but not the windows . . . there was a deafening sound like a jet engine . . . but the house stayed together. By the way the inside wall of a tornado looks like the gray water that drains out of clothes washing machine.

Flying tree limbs and lumber punctured the roof in several places.

The aftermath

The dogs and I were in a state of shock for a couple of minutes until the torrential rains stopped. I went outside. Three trees in my yard were blown down. The roof was punctured in several spots by flying tree limbs and lumber, but there was no catastrophic damage.

I initially assumed that Jasper had not been seriously damaged by the tornado. Then bands of injured and stunned survivors began stumbling along my street . . . for unknown reasons, headed toward downtown Jasper. They looked like zombies

For unknown reasons, houses and the apartment complex within the northern edge of the tornado funnel had received catastrophic damage. Miraculously, no one was killed, but there were some serious injuries.

This was third time that I had been inside a tornado funnel . . . and survived. I thought it was my lucky charm!

Nope . . . an F-1 tornado struck my cabin near Dahlonega, GA in March 2017 . . . blowing off the roof. Hurricane Zeta in 2020 and Hurricane Helene in 2024 struck my property here in the Nacoochee Valley directly, blowing down lots of large trees. Helene also spawned a tornado that went over the rear of my mountainside propert.

Disclaimer

Please do not try this experiment alone in your home. It would result in life-threatening hazards. The author is a bonified member of the Creek Wind Clan . . . not some white man trying to steal your heritage!

Original rendering of the monument for the Oklahoma Centennial Commission.