Marion County residents recount the terrifying aftermath of the storms

MARION COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) – Early Sunday morning, severe weather tore through the Tennessee Valley, prompting multiple tornado warnings and leaving behind a path of destruction.

One area hit especially hard was the Whiteside community in southeastern Marion County.

In Marion County, the storm left a trail of damage ranging from trees snapped in half to entire billboard signs ripped from their posts.

Many homes were affected, and now, residents are left to pick up the pieces.

News 12 spoke with several community members who described the storm’s frightening intensity and how they’re coping in the aftermath.

Deborah Widgeon, a resident of the area, recalled the moment she stepped outside and saw the extent of the destruction.

“Oh God, our tree’s gone, our tree’s gone. This tree,” she exclaimed. “We didn’t know it was this bad.”

Widgeon elaborated on the moment she realized just how serious the situation was, explaining, “It was bad. It was really, really bad. The worst I’ve ever seen around here.”

As she stood near her home, she described what she believed to be a tornado forming just beyond her porch. “Everybody’s been saying you have to be blessed. And the next thing I knew when we come out, I said, ‘We’re in a tornado.’ I mean, we come outside and you can see it!”

Just down the road, Juanita Tanner, an elderly resident, said she felt completely helpless as the storm passed over. She lost part of her roof and most of her front porch in the chaos.

“I was asking God to please keep my home safe. I was praying. That’s all I needed to do, cause I ain’t able to do nothing else,” Tanner told us.

She recounted the terrifying sounds as the storm battered her home: “I knew I heard the popping and the cracking of the wood busting, and the front porch is gone. It’s up on top of my roof.”

Despite the loss, Tanner expressed deep gratitude for her family’s safety. “I thank God for protecting me and my family, and saving our houses at least. I know other people got it worse than I did, but I don’t know how I’m going to fix this.”

Annie Henry, another homeowner in the area, shared that the storm hit with almost no warning.

“It happened so fast,” she said. “I mean, everything was so quiet and all of a sudden, here it came, and it sounded like a giant crane coming through.”

Later, she discovered the roof of her porch had collapsed onto her car.

“The top of my porch was laying back here on the back of the car,” she told us.

From shingles blown off rooftops to trees uprooted and lives disrupted, the impact of Sunday’s storm will not be forgotten anytime soon.

But for the residents of Whiteside, the spirit of resilience remains strong—even as recovery is just beginning.