Photo from tornado-ravaged Tennessee home travels over 100 miles

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WREG) — A family photo from a Tipton County, Tennessee home destroyed by a tornado last month was found about 120 miles away in Paris, Tennessee.

The woman who found the picture of a man and woman and two small children had no idea how far the picture had traveled and posted it on Facebook to find the family.

Amanda Morris, who was the baby in the photograph, said her mother saw the picture on Facebook after she was tagged by a friend and messaged the woman who found it.

“It’s a little weird seeing a picture of your family when you were little in the tornado,” said Morris. “It’s crazy because I live in Hickman, Kentucky but was at my mother’s house in Newbern when the tornado hit.”

Morris said the picture taken back in 1979 was in her aunt and uncle’s home near Covington when the tornado ripped through the area on March 31.

The tornado demolished the house on Indian Creek Road. Morris said her aunt, uncle, and two cousins were injured when they were thrown from the home, and her cousin’s finance Cody Moses, was killed.

“My uncle said he could hear it coming, and he went to get a mattress, and Cody got up to help him, and he saw the front wall fall in, and then it just threw them,” said Morris. “It threw Cody farther than it did the rest of the family.”

Morris said her aunt is still in the hospital being treated for numerous injuries.

“Broke pelvis, broken leg, five broken ribs, broken collar bone, and concussion,” Morris said.

Morris said her father, also in the family photo, died in 2021 from COVID. She said after his death, her 17-year-old cousin asked for a picture of her dad, and it was hanging on her cousin’s bedroom wall when the twister touched down.

Morris still can’t believe where it landed.

“To think: while I was sitting at my mom’s house, a picture of myself went from Covington all the way to Paris. That’s wild,” she said.

Morris said her aunt could be released from the hospital in a couple of days and said her uncle and cousins are staying with family as they try to get back on their feet.