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Bratt Elementary School Librarian’s Home Hit By Possible Tornado

For years, Bratt Elementary School librarian Martha Jeter worried that one day a tornado would hit the school, but she never considered that her home might be destroyed by a storm.

In the pre-dawn hours Friday, her home was heavily damaged by a tornado or powerful straight line winds.

Martha, her husband Gerald and a step-nephew Joe Brown were in the Jeter’s home on Bell Creek Road near Chumuckla in Santa Rosa County when the possible tornado hit just before 5:00 Friday morning.

Gerald was already awake after hearing heavy rains on the small wood frame house’s tin roof, and because of frequent thunder and lightning. Martha was asleep in the back the house. She was oblivious to the weather outside because she was not wearing her hearing aids.

“He got us up and told us to go the hallway,” she said. “I headed toward the kitchen window to look out. Then there was what sounded like an explosion.” That sound was a tree limb crashing through the window of the home.

“The whole house shook,” Gerald said. The family gathered in the hallway, and in seconds it was over.

“We did not really know what had happened,” Martha said. “It was so dark. We knew there was water raining in the house, but it was daylight before we could get a good look at how bad it was.”

The family was uninjured. And what they found was not good.

The carport was gone. The roof on the utility room off the carport was gone. Much of the metal roof on their house was torn away, some hundreds of yards away in the trees. The roof that remained on the home had boards from the carport driven through it.

A large wooden board was pushed through the wall of their travel trailer, which had been spun around 90 degrees by the winds as it sat just outside their home.  The roof on the travel trailer was rolled back.

The damage was so severe that Santa Rosa County condemned their house, declaring it unsafe to live in.

“They tell us that we can’t sleep here tonight,” Martha told NorthEscambia.com late Friday afternoon. The family had gathered at the house trying to salvage clothes and other items before darkness fell.  “It’s hard to believe that it is all gone.”

“For years I would pray ‘Lord don’t ever let a tornado hit the school’,” Jeter said. She would say that prayer each time the children at Bratt Elementary huddled in the hallways for tornado drill.  “I just never thought one would hit our house, take our house away.”

The Jeters had big plans for their little home next weekend. Their children were to be in town to help Martha and Gerald celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

“But we won’t be having them here at this house now,” she said. “But we will still celebrate our anniversary. Forty years.”

The Jeters have lived on Bell Creek Road for almost 22 years. They are not sure if they will rebuild at this point. The family had insurance, but they also had other plans. Martha is just a year away from retirement, and they had thought about moving south to be closer to their kids.

For now, they will be staying with nearby relatives.

“I’m not sure what we will do next,” Martha said. “I am just thankful that we were not hurt, and that no one else was hurt. We were blessed.”

Click here for more NorthEscambia.com photos from the Jeter home in Chumuckla.

Pictured top: Martha and Gerald Jeter outside the remains of their Chumuckla home Friday afternoon. Pictured middle inset: A large piece of wood was driven into the side of a travel trailer just outside the home. Pictured below: The house was heavily damaged by a possible tornado. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.