Thirty years ago this week, on April 25, 1994, an EF-4 tornado struck the Dallas-area towns of Lancaster and DeSoto, both less than 15 miles from Exchange headquarters. Three people died in the storm and more than 700 homes were destroyed or damaged in the outbreak.
Headquarters associates were among those who suffered heavy losses. Among them were Cafeteria Checker/Cashier Judy Gathings, who lived in Lancaster and who still works for the Exchange as a sweepstakes fulfillment technician.
According to a 1994 Exchange Post story, Gathings and her family—her husband, Vic, and sons Paul and Patrick, 17 and 12 at the time—took shelter in a bathroom, with Judy and Patrick sharing the bathtub and Vic and Paul on the floor. Paul, already 6-foot-4, braced his back against the tub and held the door shut with his feet.
“It seems like it was eight or 10 years ago, not 30,” Gathings said in an email this week. “I have tears in my eyes right now thinking how blessed we were that all four of us were still alive when a few were not! You think your world has come to an end, but things ended up better for us in the long run.” (The 1994 Exchange Post photo at the top of this story shows just some of the damage to Gathings’ home.)
After they were able to go outside, according to the 1994 story, Judy ran back and forth across the street, yelling neighbors’ names. One of those neighbors was Marilyn Ward, a Dishonored Checks Accounting Technician, whose home was also destroyed.
When they spotted each other in a lightning flash, Gathings told the Exchange Post in 1994, “It was like those old commercials where the couple spread their arms and run toward each other. It was good to see her.”
Ward, her husband Kenneth and her father-in-law had taken cover in a hallway. Kenneth, who held on tight to a flashlight even as the storm hit their house, had to pull Marilyn and his father out of the rubble afterward.
“Their home became a three-foot high pile of debris,” the Exchange Post reported. “Their brand-new car, which they hadn’t even made a payment on, was destroyed.” One item that did survive was a small end table with the family’s photo albums on its shelves. Only one album was lost.
The Gathings, meanwhile, were wondering what happened to their truck, which had been parked in the front of their house. They discovered that the storm had blown it into their back yard.
Power lines were down, but one of the neighbors found a working cellphone amid the debris. Survivors shared the phone to call loved ones. Calls also went out for food, water, clothing and cleanup assistance.
“We had no clothes, except what was on our backs, and that was covered with oil and debris,” Gathings says. “AAFES sent a message to headquarters about our needing clothes. People came to the cafeteria asking me for sizes for all of the family and for Marilyn’s family.”
Monetary donations also came in, allowing the Gathings family to buy new clothes and items such as toothpaste and toothbrushes. Gathings’ husband had undergone back surgery two weeks before the storm; the Red Cross replaced his medications, which were lost in the storm.
Tech Sgt. Bill Steddum, the noncommissioned officer in charge of information security, assembled a team of nearly 275 volunteers at HQ. On a rainy Friday four days after the storm, they came to Lancaster to help residents dig through rubble to see what they could salvage.
“When I drove into the area, I was awestruck,” one of the volunteers told the Exchange Post. “It was far worse than anything I had seen on television.”
Other HQ associates donated food and household goods as well as clothing. Because Gathings worked in the cafeteria, everyone at HQ knew her, so she and her family received a lot of support.
“Charles Bland was over the sample warehouse,” she said this week. “He got permission from AAFES to give both of the families samples that would otherwise have been thrown away and boy, were those things lifesavers! Carswell was over the cafeteria at that time and they also donated things to us.”
Then-Texas Gov. Ann Richards and Texas State Sen. Royce West visited the neighborhood. Gathings’ youngest son recognized the governor and ran up to greet her. During two later visits to HQ, West visited the cafeteria and recognized Gathings.
Gathings said that it’s still stressful to think about the tornado.
“I guess it never goes away,” she said. “We still hate to hear the sirens go off.”
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