Personal account from Brittney Graham| Sophomore in 1999

When the 1999 tornado hit at Austin Peay, I was a freshman living in Sevier Hall. That night, our boys’ basketball team played in Martin against UT Martin and several of us had gone to support the team.

The night was very warm, windy and eerie feeling. I remember thinking something didn’t feel right. We got back late and went to bed but it was so warm we could hardly sleep.

A few hours later, our RA bangs on our door and just kept yelling for everyone to wake up and get to the first-floor hallway. My roommate and I went downstairs, and we were looking for our other friends.

We were all huddled up in the hallway, but we could hear the wind outside. It was quite scary.

A little while later we were free to go up to our rooms. We got dressed and went outside and couldn’t believe our eyes.

A few of our cars were damaged, we looked to the left, and the University Center was a mess along with several other buildings.

We were told to go to the Dunn Center and wait for word on what to do next. Mind you, this was before cell phones, so a text alert wasn’t even heard of.

We started looking for friends in other dorms and trying to get a head count. I remember thinking, “This is so surreal.”