CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – “Her story is one of those that your heart will just drop to the ground,” said Nathan Clark, general manager of Lowes on Madison Street.
The woman that Clark is speaking of is 47-year-old De Louthen, who has been working with Lowes for almost three years. She’s lived in Clarksville since 1985 and wears many hats as a mother of five, a grandmother and head cashier.
On Wednesday, she wore the hat of a volunteer as she helped distribute black totes of cleaning supplies and plates of food to the public as part of the Bucket Brigade by Lowes and Operation BBQ Relief.
Broken bones and missing children
On Dec. 9, it was business as usual as Louthen opened the store and got to work. It was around 1 p.m. when Louthen heard her coworker ask, “Are those sirens?”
The only alerts and warnings they received were over the radio in the store and the sound of tornado sirens in the distance. Louthen said she received a text from one of her sons asking, “Are we going to be okay?”
“I feel terrible…I told my 17-year-old, ‘yeah, nothing is going to happen, it’ll pass,'” Louthen recalled. “My biggest regret is not telling him to get into our storage unit with his brother and our cats.”
At 1:30, Louthen left work and found disaster left in the wake of the tornado. Downed powerlines, trees, debris and rubble. When she saw the first row of apartments were okay and standing, she started felt a small bit of reassurance that was short lived as soon as she saw her apartment.
Her sons stood outside the wreckage, covered in cuts and blood. Her oldest had his arm wrapped in a blanket nursing, what they later found out, a broken arm. He had been in bed, asleep, when the tornado hit. As the roof started to collapse, his younger brother rushed in and grabbed his hand to pull him from the falling wreckage. In a moment of desperation, he had yanked his brother’s arm so hard it fractured.
Immediately, she put her sons in the car to go to the ER, but stopped when she heard one of her neighbors say that a child was missing. Before leaving for the ER, they searched the disaster-stricken complex to help look for the child.
Luckily, the child was located and Louthen and her sons raced to the emergency room.
‘I don’t have time to think about what I don’t have anymore’
On Wednesday, Dec. 13, Louthen was standing outside of Lowes with several of her coworkers. Behind her was a mass of black and yellow totes full of cleaning supplies, and right beside her was a food truck serving plates of hot food.
It had barely been four days since Louthen and her family lost everything to their names, and yet none of that seemed to matter to her as she greeted people and offered them totes of supplies and food. Despite everything, Louthen was still placing the needs of others before herself, volunteering to help those in need.
“People need things,” Louthen told Clarksville Now as she worked. “Just having toilet paper and water can make you feel a lot more human… We’ve got to try getting everyone else feeling normal.”
A sense of normalcy. It’s something Louthen believes in helping people find right now, even if it’s just for a moment.
“I walked into my leasing office Monday morning, and I saw people who had no idea where they were going from here,” Louthen said. “If this helps someone take five minutes to figure something out, then so be it.”
Smiling through the hard times
For Louthen, going through this disaster has given her a unique outlook on life.
“I don’t have time to stop and think about what I don’t have anymore, things can be replaced,” she said as she helped load a tote of supplies into the back of a truck. “That always sounds really silly and cliche until something like this happens.”
Louthen counts herself lucky. She’s grateful that her family is safe overall and that she is surrounded by generous family, friends and coworkers.
Sadly, Louthen’s family had barely gotten settled at their old apartment and had only lived there for two months when the tornado hit. With the help of her friends, family and coworkers, Louthen and her children have the opportunity to move into a new apartment soon.
“I try not to think of the sad stuff, and it’s hard,” Louthen told Clarksville Now. “I could burst into tears at any moment, but I try really hard not to.”
She then showed Clarksville Now a picture of what was left in the wreckage of her home.
“I like to tell people that the kitchen has a lot of natural lighting now,” She laughed as she swiped to the next picture: a Christmas tree still standing in the rubble, ornaments intact. “When people ask if the Lowes Christmas tree ornaments are shatterproof, I like to show this picture now and tell them they can endure an EF-3 tornado.”