The Tragic Yet Inspiring Story of Pam Whitaker, A True American Hero
Most Americans were sleeping peacefully in their beds the morning of February 7th, 2008. I happened to be staying at a motel in Auburn, Alabama that morning. Since I usually work the night shift, I awoke around 3 AM and ventured down to the lobby of the hotel where a television set was tuned to CNN's coverage of the tornadoes that had ravaged through several towns in Alabama, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
As I watched, I became totally engrossed in the following early morning interview done by CNN's John Roberts with Pam Whitaker who had just survived a night of terror in her town of Lafayette, Tennessee. Pam was quite understandably in an apparent state of shock as she stood there speaking with the reporter as the storm's destruction was unveiled with the sun's morning light.
You can click on the following link or paste the address into your web browser to watch Pam's early morning interview with CNN correspondent John Roberts:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/weather/2008/02/07/roberts.whitaker.intv.cnn?iref=videosearch
Here is the transcript of Pam Whitaker's interview that morning which begins with CNN anchor Alina Cho checking in with correspondent John Roberts:ALINA CHO: John?
ROBERTS: Yes. Similar scenes here, Dan. They're trying to string the power wires back up again but they haven't even begun to start the cleanup here. They're still searching for some survivors. Dan Lothian for us this morning in Atkins, Arkansas. Dan, thanks very much.
And joining me now this morning is Pam Whitaker. She lost her home as the tornadoes tore across Tennessee. She's here this morning.
You don't have any shoes on and you had a broken foot. My goodness, what kind of conditions are you living in these days?
PAM WHITAKER, LOST HOME IN STORM: We're living in the National Guard. And we don't have a home to go to. So I don't know where we're going to end up.
ROBERTS: They've got you in the shelter there?
WHITAKER: At the National Guard. We was at the school but we had no lights or nothing, so we transferred to the National Guard.
ROBERTS: So take me back to Tuesday night, Super Tuesday night, an election going on here in Tennessee.
WHITAKER: We never did get to see that. They started with the warnings. And so about 7:00, the wind seemed like it was about 9 miles an hour. The week before, we had a small little windstorm, and the neighbor's roof came off. And when they said it was supercell, I knew it would be long and hard.
