JAMISON — It was a miracle. Julia Mack arose early Friday morning and prepared to go to work. As her daughter Latoya and 14-month-old grandson Jermaine slept in their room, Julia heard noises outside her Coulter Road home that made her uneasy. She walked to the room where her daughter slept to let her know she was leaving. With the noise growing louder, she peeped out of the window to see what was going on.

It only took a second.

The mobile home was rushed with a storm of rain and wind, taking it off the foundation and rolling it over. She shielded her grandson to make sure nothing would hit him. She heard Latoya say she was OK.

"I looked out the window because the noise was going on so bad," Mack said Friday morning. "The trailer started rocking over. I leaned over to make sure nothing would hit (Jermaine). I got out through the window. Then she handed me the baby, and then she got out."

A tornado warning was issued from 4:45 to 5:15 a.m. Friday, including Orangeburg and Calhoun counties, Orangeburg County Emergency Services Director John Smith said. Two twisters moved through the Jamison area and parts of Calhoun County along U.S. Highway 601 just before 5 a.m. They left in their path two destroyed mobile homes, a demolished church and damage to at least nine other homes and the Tri-County Electric Cooperative headquarters near St. Matthews.

Surprisingly, only one person was injured, Smith said. A resident of one of the mobile homes destroyed was partially ejected from the home. She was treated at the scene and taken to the hospital, Jamison Fire Chief R. Kirk Davis Jr. said.

"What's amazing is we only have one person reported injured with the time of day it happened," Smith said. "I'm extremely surprised (that more people weren't injured) and very delighted. Only one person. They did not know it was going on until it was happening. We're looking at a miracle."

Standing in her robe, still a bit shaken, Mack wondered how she would get some of her clothes from the home. "The bottom is on the top and the top is on the bottom," she said. The family will temporarily live with relatives. Mack wondered how she and her daughter would get around, both cars were destroyed, too. She needed to tell the insurance people.

Latoya Mack stood holding her young son, looking at the home. Jermaine had a tumultuous morning and was getting agitated. He hadn't slept much. Thoughts entered and exited her mind as quick as the storm hit. What if her mother had not been there? She had found the dog, but her cat was still missing. Then there was the holidays. And her wedding.

"If she would have left, it would have been me and my son," she said nervously. "Knowing me, I would have panicked.

"The dog, the house was on top of him. I still can't find my cat," she said, switching subjects. Then the reality of it all began to sink in.

"We were soaking wet," she said. "It was raining on top of our heads inside. I thought we were already outside. I don't believe I'm going through this. I feel like I still have to wake up. We don't have transportation; it just left us stranded. We got to start from the bottom and come back up."

"I was about to get married in one week," she said as if she just remembered. "My dress is at my fiance's house. (Jermaine's) stuff for the wedding is in here — his shoes, his tux." She felt her ring finger, checking for her ring. "His (her fiance) ring is still at the store getting sized."

Jermaine had fallen asleep.

The path of one tornado continued down Coulter Road. Power lines and trees were down. Other homes were missing parts of their roofs, pieces of underpinning; barns and sheds were damaged. Neighbors ventured out to see the extent of the damage and tell the tales of their own. Marlo Butler scanned pictures in her digital camera of the damage to her home. "I heard the storm and I felt it," she said, adding there were a lot more homes that looked like hers.

Through the threshold of the Union Chapel Baptist Church doors was total destruction. The church was completely destroyed, the brick foundation broken to pieces. The path of the storm led straight to the pulpit but, somehow, the pulpit was left standing. A Bible was still there; the chairs behind it were barely rocked. Through all of the destruction, the church altar still stood.

"I wasn't expecting this," the Rev. James Tucker said. "When the sun came up, there it was."

Glaring at the rubble that was his sanctuary, Tucker's demeanor was a mixture of shock and thankfulness — shock at the destruction a storm can bring, gratitude that lives were spared.

"The church building can be rebuilt," he said, reminding church members that God rules all things, even storms. "He blew open the doors, he was coming inside. He built it all, and he can destroy it."

Church members were salvaging what was left. They carried out a flag with a cross on it, file cabinets, pictures and pews.

"This can be replaced, but a life can't," he said. "The pulpit wasn't touched ... thank God it's a building and not a life."

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