Storm Stories: ‘we Realized … What Is The Most Important’

By Chris Kieffer Daily Journal Kathy Hallmark vividly remembers the smell inside the storm house. “You could smell tree bark,” she remembers one year later. “It just took your breath away, almost nauseating of the smell of tree bark, so you knew everything was being torn up.” Hallmark was in the storm house with 12 family members as the tornado passed directly overhead their property on County Road 1766, just off Auburn Road in eastern Lee County. Once the din of falling debris ceased, five generations of the Lyle family emerged to a sight that was even more sickening. “The thing I remember the most is coming out of the storm house and just coming over the top of the hill and seeing it, everything I knew ripped away in a matter of seconds,” said Jacob Lyle, 26, Hallmark’s nephew. Members of the Lyle family own four houses tucked near each other on land the family has had for decades.