The only house left standing: How a FF-EMT's house became a 'light on the hill' after a devastating tornado
Darrell Jennings and his family aided 28 neighbors in their living room after a violent EF-4 tornado tore through their Putnam County, Tennessee, neighborhood
At 1:58 a.m. on Mar. 3, 2020, a violent EF-4 tornado with winds up to 175 mph tore through Putnam County, Tennessee.
Twenty minutes prior, Darrell Jennings was sitting in his chair beside his bed – looking at four different radars and watching the news about storms forming west of Nashville. Eight minutes before the tornado struck his neighborhood, he received a tornado warning alert on his cellphone.
He quickly got up, put his fire department shirt on, grabbed his radio and walked to the back door of his house.
It was pitch black outside, but a nearby lightning strike illuminated an ominous yellow-gray sky.