Grieving continues for this hard-hit Riverview family on The Murfreesboro Post

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Grieving continues for this hard-hit Riverview family

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By: MICHELLE WILLARD, Post Staff Writer

Posted: Sunday, October 11, 2009 7:36 am

Beverly Calder is still mourning the loss of her Riverview home from the searing winds of the Good Friday Tornado.

“It’s a grieving process like losing somebody,” she said about the house where she’d lived with her husband James for 18 years. She’s gone from angry to sad and now she just doesn’t know what to do.

Calder’s house is one of 117 that was destroyed by an EF-4 tornado Friday, April 10. The twister damaged 845 houses, 298 with major damage, and caused more than $41 million in damage on its 23-mile-long path of destruction through Murfreesboro and Rutherford County.

The Riverview neighborhood, and specifically Riverbend Drive where Calder lived, was hard hit with many houses on the street sustaining major damage.

“Until I came outside and looked around, I didn’t know how much damage there was,” she said.

Even with all the loss, she still considers herself very lucky to have survived.

Calder hid under the stairs to protect herself, but the home didn’t survive.

“There is no house there,” she said about the empty lot where her home once stood. “We have to decide whether to rebuild or settle somewhere else.”

She and her husband James are in a rental house now and at times they go looking for something only to realize it was lost to the tornado.

Along with the home, she lost furniture and mementos from her grandparents and parents – all things that can’t be replaced.

“You can’t put a price on your emotions and things that have an emotional attachment,” Calder said.

Calder’s neighbor Chris Bloebaum, on the other hand, didn’t lose many personal items to the winds.

“We were pretty fortunate with personal things,” he said, adding most of the closets in his Riverbend home were left intact.

“We were able to get all of our quilts back. … They were all really personal things,” he said, noting the quilts were made by his grandmother and grandfather.

But the house itself wasn’t as lucky.

On Good Friday, Bloebaum was keeping an eye on the weather and took cover in a closet with his dog as the tornado passed over his home.

He said it only lasted a few seconds, but then suddenly he was covered in insulation as the tornado shredded his roof.

“And then I was looking at the sky through the ceiling in the room I was in,” he said.

Because of the extensive damage to his home, it was deemed a total loss and torn down.

Bloebaum was within a week of starting construction when he got an offer on the lot.

“We kind of moved on. I think,” he said. “We actually got a good offer on the lot. We hated to lose the house and neighbors, but we decided to move.”

Michelle Willard can be contacted at 615-869-0816 or mwillard@murfreesboropost.com.

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Tags: Beverly Calder, Chris Bloebaum, Good Friday Tornado, Tornado

Member Opinions:

By: Onthehill on 10/11/09
My heart still goes out to all of those who lost so much that day. It is so sad to drive by there and still see the reminder of the terror that only took minutes to wipe out what took a lifetime to build.

Those lives lost that day are the most precious ones we lost. I send my prayers to that family and pray that God is giving them strength to move forward as with all those who suffered that day. God gave us memories for a reason and I hope they can draw upon those to give them comfort. God Bless All of You. I also want to send out a God Bless to all the volunteers and first responders to gave so graciously. You are the best!!

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