A wedding turns deadly after East Texas tornado claims man

It was a day for a celebration.

But a day that was intended to make great memories instead turned to sorrow when a tornado hit a East Texas town on Saturday, leaving Rusty Barlow, 51, dead.

Four generations of the Eaton/Arnett family were gathered at the home of Amanda and Clyde Scott outside Canton, Texas. Amanda’s goal was to give her sister Jessica the wedding of her dreams. The wedding was to be held in the Scott’s shop, and prospective groom Kyle Carpenter along with about 11 other family members were in the shop prior to the festivities.

“The wedding was supposed to start at 7 p.m., and we got there about 5:30,” said Brad Arnett of Corsicana. “It was raining real hard. Before me and Leecia could get out of the car, my niece Jordan got out of the car, ran nearly to the door, then turned and got back in, and we rode the tornado out in the car.”

“Jordan had gotten out, and we had our seatbelts off,” agreed Leecia, Brad’s wife. “She came running back and jumped in the front seat on top of Brad. All the windows of the car came in on us, and something like a rock hit me in the back of the head, hard. We were trying to get the car door shut before the wind slammed it shut and cut her legs off.”

Brad said his brother Randall and wife Vicki were in the shop with some others, and his mother, Barbara, was in the house with Rhonda, his sister, and her daughter, the bride, as well as other family members and children.

“It took the shop, picked up our vehicle, spun us around, but we never turned completely over,” Brad said. “It carried us about 300 feet then another pickup came through the air and hit us, drove us into the ground, which probably saved mine, Leecia’s and Jordan’s lives.”

Leecia said the small Kia spun around in the rotation, went up on its side, then thankfully the white pickup came by and forced the Kia into the ground; otherwise, the Kia might have ended up in a tree or in the house.

Meanwhile, Randall, Vicki, their daughter Morgan Limmer and her husband Judson were in the shop. Vicki said the weather was bad, but the thing that caught their attention was the change in wind direction. Everyone was told to get in the shop, and Clyde was looking out the door. He yelled “It’s a tornado!” and told everyone to run to the corner of the shop. With the Limmers leading the family to the corner, Randall and Vicki began pushing kids down and trying to shield them with their bodies.

“There were racecars in there, and they were dripping fuel,” Vicki said. “Randall had it dripping on his legs. He screamed to the kids to get out of the building. Then he found me, and Brad helped us out.”

Brad, once safely out of his vehicle, had made his way to the shop to help those out there. He said his mother and those in the house had heard the tornado coming, and taken shelter in the middle of the house. There was a storm shelter, as Clyde Scott is in the business of building them, but no one had time to get to the storm shelter before the first tornado was on them.

“Rusty was already gone, and there was nothing we could do for him,” Brad said of his brother-in-law.

Leecia said their nephew Joshua was standing only five feet away from Rusty, but walked away just needing five stitches in his hand.

“From there, those that could walk went to the shelter and got in,” Vicki said. “There were still people down there, but I was one of the first ones to go to the hospital because of my arm.”

Vicki had suffered a broken shoulder blade, broken rib, and a possible fractured on her clavicle, due to some flying debris in the shop. She had been serving the role of caregiver, as her parents had been in a terrible car crash weeks earlier, where her mother was seriously injured. Morgan Limmer had a cabinet land on her, which kept her immobile until it was lifted off. She sustained cuts and bruises, like most everyone in that outbuilding, and Vicki thought it possible there was one who may have had broken ribs. She recalled that the DJ for the wedding had his foot severed.

“Randall has a knot and a cut on his head, bruises, cuts and scrapes,” she said. “And superficial burns from the fuel in the racecars. But other than that he’s just sore.”

Leecia, who remembered riding out a tornado in Bellmead in the fifth grade, said that one did sound like a freight train. But the Canton tornado did not — it just dropped on them from out of the sky, she said, with no warning other than rain. However, in the time before the next tornado came through, about 35 people managed to get into the two-story storm shelter.

“We stayed there, and heard the next tornado come by,” Brad said. “It went further east of us, but we heard it from the shelter. Afterward, Clyde went and got his Bobcat and cleared the road so people could get in.”

“It is the most horrible thing I have ever been through,” Vicki said. “I would not wish it on anyone.

“The Mabank Fire Station is where we ended up to be triaged, and they were awesome. Careflight ambulance out of Kemp, all of them were good to us and just amazing. I can’t wait until I’m able to go over and thank them.”

Vicki said all the vehicles belonging to family members were totaled, and some could no longer be identified by make or model.

“Those things can be replaced, and broken bones will heal, but broken hearts won’t heal,” she said with emotion. “My heart hurts for Rhonda so bad, and for Kyle and Jessica — what a horrible thing to have happen on your wedding day.”

The family is counting their blessings, despite the loss of Barlow. The bride’s grandmother, Barbara Arnett, is physically unharmed, as is Rhonda.

“We are thankful we didn’t lose our whole family,” Leecia said. “God is good. Some people wouldn’t see it like that, but we rode out a storm.”

“God just wasn’t ready for us,” Vicki said. “He had a prime opportunity to have taken every one of us.”

Leecia said Rhonda is doing as well as can be expected. She knows her sister-in-law is grieving Rusty, but also grateful her grandkids and other family were spared.

“We just appreciate the calls, the texts, the visits, and especially the prayers,” Vicki said. “It will be a long road to heal. You don’t realize how traumatic something like that can be.

“On behalf of Randall and myself, we appreciate everyone who loves us and is trying to do something for us.”

 Kirk writes for the Corsicana, Texas Daily Sun.