LAFAYETTE, Tenn. -
Four years after the deadly Super Tuesday tornado outbreak, residents in Macon County remember the tragedy and hope one project will help the county be better prepared for any future disasters.
Election night, February 5, 2008 was marred by one of the worst tornado disasters in the state's history.
A deadly tornado ripped through the community of Lafayette, 70 miles northeast of Nashville, in the middle of the night.
The toll from the powerful, EF-3 twister is still tough for locals to take.
Macon County Sheriff Mark Gammons was on duty that night.
He told Nashville's News 2, "It's a shock. It's like it never happened, a dream. I had employees here that lost their homes, and I, matter of fact, had one here working when they [had a] call come in, their home [was] blown away. And it's just hard to accept that. What can you say?"
In Macon County alone, the tornado killed 14 people, flattened nearly 300 homes and left close to $100 million worth of damage.
"The Columbia golf building [was] hit," Sheriff Gammons recalled. "There was a great, big fire and most of our calls that first [came] in, they thought it was just fires here, fires there. And that's what we thought we had- someone setting places on fire, until we actually got the call that the house [had been blown] down."
President George Bush had even visited the county to view the destruction.
At the time, storm victims vowed to rebuild in the same spot, and they have.
New homes and businesses have sprung up, and emergency responders will soon have a new 911 center to better handle natural disasters.
"The 911 center is great," Sheriff Gammons said. "At the time, we didn't have the set up for this type of tragedy. We weren't prepared, which I don't think [anyone is ever] prepared."
The new 911 center is scheduled to be completed by July.
Macon County was part of a much larger tornado outbreak.
Three people were killed in Trousdale County.
Across the south, the Super Tuesday outbreak produced 87 tornadoes, killed a total of 57 people and left more than a billion dollars worth of damage.
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February 2008, an EF-3 tornado ripped through Macon County.
