Sign survives tornado

By Steve Lawson
News Editor

The sign that greets visitors to the new T&M Hair Gallery in Stoneville stands as a testament to courage and perseverance. Mounted to the front of the salon’s reception desk, the sign once hung outside the original T&M location.
“It was one of the few things that survived the tornado,” said shop owner Misty Manring. “So we thought it deserved to be refinished and given a special place.”
Manring and her staff vividly remember March 20, 1998. It was the day their lives changed in just a few minutes.
With a storm brewing outside, things were normal inside the original T&M building before the tornado struck. Manring remembers hearing the town’s warning siren and looking out the window of her shop.
“I looked over toward Claybrook Tire and saw the funnel cloud heading straight toward us,” she said.
Manring and six others rushed to the rear of the shop and lay on the floor. Seconds later, the tornado blew out the windows and ripped away the roof and part of the back wall.
“When we walked out, the winds had swapped things from room to room and there were glass daggers sticking in the walls everywhere,” Manring said. “I never dreamed we would see something like that here.”
Likening the scene that greeted them outside the building to a war zone, Manring said there were power poles sticking out of customer’s cars and power lines across the road everywhere.
“It was awful,” she said. “We immediately checked the water tower right behind us. If that had fallen, we would have been crushed.”
Manring also learned a lesson on the selective nature of tornadoes. A laundry on the west side of the salon and a service station to the east were destroyed.
“Thank God there was no one in either of those buildings at the time,” she said. “We even thought about running to hide in the oil pit at the service station but didn’t think we had time. If we had, we would have been trapped or worse when the building collapsed.”
Since that day, Manring has seen changes around her town. The downtown blocks that received so much damage have been rebuilt. New businesses have helped improve the diversity of the downtown area.
“It was sad to lose two lives that day, but there have been some positive changes to grow out of that tragic time in our town,” Manring said. “I think the tornado helped bring us together as a community.”
T&M Hair Gallery opened its new location in November just behind the site of the original building. Manring said the damages to the old building were repaired and the business remained open while the new shop was planned and built. The old site is now a larger parking area for customers.
“It’s really nice to have this larger, more modern location, but I wouldn’t want to go through something like that again,” Manring said.

News Editor Steve Lawson can be reached at slawson@reidsvillereview.com or at 548-6047