FRANKLIN, Tenn. (WKRN) —  While mowing his grass last Tuesday, Franklin resident Jeff Flowers never thought he would be connected with devastation felt 95 miles away in Adamsville. 

“I actually turned as quick as I could to avoid it, I clipped it just a little bit with the mower but I just saw there was a picture there. Wasn’t there the first pass, second pass it was there, so I kind of assume maybe it just fell out of the tree or something,” Flowers said.  

Little did Flowers know, what traveled all the way to his backyard was a decades-old family photo. The mother in the picture tragically lost her life in the storm, as well as her late husband, who was not pictured. 

“I saw the picture, I really got a weird, strange feeling because I didn’t know anybody in the picture and it was just laying there so perfectly,” Flowers explained. 

That sense caused Flowers to email the picture to News 2’s Davis Nolan, who then posted it to Facebook. Through that post, Flowers was able to connect with the children in the photo, now grown adults.

“You know, now you find the picture, you make the connection, you start looking on Facebook and learning a little bit about the family and now you have this real sympathy, it’s kind of a weird situation,” Flowers said.  

As Flowers works to mail the family this special keepsake, he says this experience has changed his view on social media.  

“If you can take a picture and find it in your backyard from 100 miles away, post it on a website and within 24 hours you’ve got 15 family members going, ‘I know who that is,’” Flowers said. “It just kind of shows that social media can, if it’s used properly, it can be a powerful tool.”