Website helps recover lost items
In the past three weeks, people have arrived in droves in Franklin County with chain saws, rakes, bottled water, canned food, and many other necessities people displaced by the tornado need to survive.
They have put their work gloves on and have gotten right in the middle of the clean-up process, helping complete strangers on their journey to rebuild their broken community.
But all the while, one kind-hearted lady from the Limestone County town of Lester has been helping with the clean-up process in her own way.
Since April 28, 37-year-old Patty Bullion has made it her mission to get many tornado victims’ pictures and documents returned to them via Facebook, and her efforts have helped many people from Phil Campbell and East Franklin.
Bullion said she felt blessed to have her and her family come through the storms on April 27 unharmed and without damage to their home. After logging on to the Facebook, a popular social networking website, to check on her family and friends, a particular post caught her eye.
“A girl that lived right down the road from me had posted it was raining pictures so I went outside and sure enough, there was an ultrasound picture laying in our yard,” Bullion said. “My children, my husband and I got outside and searched the yard and found several more pictures.”
Bullion said she discussed what to do with the pictures with her children and finally decided to start a Facebook page called “Picture and Documents Found After the April 27, 2011 Tornadoes.”
“I knew if I just put [the pictures] on my page the chances of them being identified were very slim,” Bullion said. “I was adopted when I was two and know how precious baby pictures can be, so I couldn’t imagine not trying to find the owners.”
Bullion got to work and within no time, the page caught on. People from a wide range of areas were posting pictures they found, many of which have been pictures or documents found in Tennessee from the Phil Campbell and East Franklin areas, and they started being claimed by grateful people who lost everything they had in the storms.
Shayna Fugate, an upcoming senior at Phil Campbell High School, lost her home, cars and everything else their family owned when the tornado tore through their Phil Campbell home that Wednesday afternoon. Thankfully the Fugates escaped with their lives, but they had little else left.
“We never thought that day we would have a tornado,” Shayna Fugate said. “It has been years since one has hit Phil Campbell so no one took it seriously.”
After the tornado destroyed their belongings and they started trying to recover, Shayna Fugate found out about Bullion’s Facebook page through her cousin.
“My cousin posted a picture on my Facebook wall and I looked at it and started looking through the rest of the photos that have been found and I actually saw a few on there that was ours,” she said.
Among the photos was a picture of her dad and sister taken years ago.
“It meant a lot to us to find these pictures because that’s the only thing our family has left to look back at now,” Shayna Fugate said. “The next day after the tornado hit that’s all we had left to look for – everything was gone. All we wanted was our pictures. The ones we found are damaged but they still have a story behind them.”
The gratitude expressed by Shayna Fugate and her family is just a small bit of the gratitude people have expressed each day towards Bullion and all she’s done to help these people find their special items.
“The feedback from this page has been wonderful. I never dreamed this page would be so big, but it has been a bright spot in this tragedy,” Bullion said. “I have had people tell me that it put a face to this storm and all the people it affected and because of that they are sending donations. I have had people tell me that they will never look at trash on the side of the road the same way again. I have also had people tell me that they have went out into pastures and woods because of the page, and they would have never thought to do so without it.”
Bullion said she spends most of her day on the page, moderating it, posting pictures, updating the wall with success stories, and answering e-mails.
“The success stories make all the work worthwhile. Just knowing that they are getting a little something back when they have lost everything is such a good feeling,” Bullion said. “I have heard from several storm survivors that have gotten pictures back and they are so grateful. I have also made a lot of new lifelong friends because of this page.
“God is so great and is truly working miracles through this page. Without Him it wouldn’t be the success it is.”
