From Alabama Alumni Extra

Alabama Alumni Extra

Remembering What’s Important

Posted on June 8, 2011 by admin

by Haley Herfurth

Julie Love's office before the tornado

When Julie Love arrived at the building that housed her law practice, Julie P. Love PC, in the Alberta City section of Tuscaloosa, Ala., on the morning of April 27, 2011, she had no idea it would be the last time she’d step through the front door. In the aftermath of the tornado that ripped through the city later that day, Love found her office leveled; however, she also found an outpouring of support she never expected.

Love, who graduated from The University of Alabama in 1996 with a bachelor’s in theatre, and her office manager, Yushonda Milligan, had debated whether to leave early that day. However, they had closed up early in the previous weeks because of storms, so they were hesitant to do so again. After much debate, Love decided to shut down and head to her home in Druid Hills, about a mile away.

What was left after the storm

While waiting in the basement for the rough weather to pass, along with her husband, Shawn, their 12-year-old son, Logan, and two friends, Love occupied herself with painting a chair, not realizing the severity of the storm. “I had been paying little attention, because our cable had been out since the April 15 tornado, so I couldn’t follow the weather,” she said. After receiving word from a friend in Birmingham, Ala., who was watching live coverage of the tornado on TV, Love finally absorbed how serious the situation really was.

While hiding in a closet under the basement stairs, they felt and heard the tornado rush over them. It pulled a large tree from their front yard completely out of the ground, and threw it over the driveway with “such force that we actually felt the ground shake,” she said. That was the only harm done to their home. Love said that she and her family were blessed; their neighborhood and the surrounding area had sustained a lot of damage. “I have been through tornadoes, and can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I was close enough that I was terrified,” she said.

Love's law degree was found, still framed and unharmed.

After the winds calmed, Love and her husband, a 2001 UA graduate, set out to find a friend of hers, with whom Love had lost contact during the storm. Since the family’s cars were blocked by the tree and her friend lived only two miles away, she and Shawn went into the fray on bicycles. On the trek, she ran into a fellow lawyer. “He grabbed hold of me as I came past him, and all he said was, ‘I was in the gym,’” she recalled. “I shook him off and said I was looking for someone and had to go. I later found out he had been in Planet Fitness [destroyed by the storm]. I will never get the image of Alberta immediately after out of my mind. People were covered with dirt and debris, and some were bleeding and holding all they owned. It looked like something from a war movie.”

Love said that despite riding past the location of her office she hadn’t focused on the fact that it was now in ruins. “Because my office laid in between my home and her home, she was the top thing on my mind,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong, it registered as I passed the building, but it took a while for it to sink in.” In the end, she was simply grateful they hadn’t been there. “When it was all said and done, I was thankful that Shonda and I had gone home,” she said.

The office sign was located amidst the rubble.

Milligan, who lives in the Palisades apartment homes on Hargrove Road, about three miles from their office, said that she had planned to return to work that afternoon, but eventually decided against it. “I figured we would get some heavy rain and winds, but nothing too severe,” she said. “Thank God I didn’t go back, because I would have been working at the time the tornado came through Alberta City.” That evening, she received a text message from Love with a picture of their law office attached. “I immediately dropped to my knees and began crying, thanking God I wasn’t there.”

Since the devastation of her office building, Love said that Wright Hale, a fellow Tuscaloosa attorney, has provided them with work space. She also said that while she has always loved the Tuscaloosa Bar, she never expected the amount of support she has received from the group. “Lawyers and judges alike have called, e-mailed and offered everything from office space to copies of files,” she said. “[District] Judge [Joel] Chandler even showed up with a bulldozer and helped dig. Clients and friends have also been so supportive and helpful. One of my favorite quotes is from the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ when Clarence left the inscription for George Bailey, ‘No man is a failure who has friends.’ I have never known that to be more true than now.”

A tree fell in the family's front yard.

Milligan said that while their office was destroyed, she knows that both she and Love and the entire area will come back stronger than before. “It will take time for everyone to recover from this, but as a community, if we continue to work together, we will rebuild Tuscaloosa,” she said.

Love agreed, saying that a positive outlook is important in these trying times. “I could easily look at the storm as a sign that I am not supposed to be in this line of work,” she said. “But I could just as easily look at the fact that in all that rubble, we pulled out all but three of our files, including 1,000 closed files, and that not one picture of my father, who practiced law for over 50 years, was damaged, as a sign that God smiled on my little law office.”