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Eufaula Mayor Jack Tibbs (inset) said about 20 houses in his neighborhood suffered damaged but noone was badly hurt in Tuesday's tornado.
If there’s a silver lining in the pandemic postponing B.A.S.S. events, it’s that the Elite anglers weren’t in harm’s way when a tornado hit the Lake Eufaula area Tuesday.
On what would have been the final day of practice for the 88 pros, an F1 tornado hit the town of Eufaula, host city for the event that was to be held April 2-5.
“We’re hanging tough,” Eufaula Mayor Jack Tibbs said as he walked through his neighborhood where about 20 homes were damaged. “Luckily no one was hurt badly. There was quite a bit of damage to homes. Some of them destroyed. People were in every one because of the coronavirus, so it’s somewhat of a miracle nobody was hurt.”
Tibbs, owner of StrikeZone Lure Company, is a tournament angler who helped bring the Elite event to the resurgent lake. While disappointed the tournament couldn’t be held now with the spawn occurring, he said it was fortunate the hundreds of people needed to put on an Elite event were not there.
“It definitely could have been worse with the anglers on the water,” he said. “That’s no place to be in a major storm. If they had been in the path of the storm, they would have been in a lot of trouble.”
Elite pro Matt Herren is a friend of Tibbs and contacted him shortly after hearing of the tornado, which now seems less significant as the number of people infected by COVID-19 is approaching 1 million worldwide with nearly 50,000 dead. Yet Herren said he can see a silver lining in that there wasn’t an on-the-water tragedy.
“It’s a bad deal. Things happened for a reason,” Herren said. “I’m very thankful that our anglers were not on that lake that morning.”
Most the Elites are very weather conscious and take great safety precautions — as does Elite tournament director Trip Weldon — yet many anglers camp, which can put them in precarious situations.
“There’s just not a lot of readily available storm shelters for us, so we’re pretty exposed in severe weather situations,” Herren said. “Fortunately, you look back on it now, I'm glad we weren't there. But on the other hand, I wish I was there, I wish I was fishing, but that time will come. I’m just glad I wasn’t sitting in the boat when that storm hit.”
Herren, like most of the Elites, was looking forward to Eufaula, which has a rich history with B.A.S.S. Since John Powell won the 1968 Eufaula National, the lake has been the site of 19 Bassmaster pro events, the last of which was a Southern Open in 2006.
“I’ve been wanting to get B.A.S.S. back here, and now’s the perfect time because the lake’s been so good,” said Tibbs, in his second term as mayor. “I want to show off our fishery, bring those guys in and it’s going to show out.
“The lake is a major asset for the city, so if the fishing is really good, then you’re going to have more visitors who spend more money with our small businesses, and that’s really important in small communities.”
Last year, Eufaula yielded a number of five-fish limits topping 30 pounds, and events before all the cancellations this spring had produced similar results.
Herren said Tibbs is an important figure in the return of the fishery including getting B.A.S.S. to schedule an event there.
“Since Jack has taken over as mayor, he’s really worked with the Corps and encouraged them to keep water levels stable during the spawn,” Herren said. “You can see the results. Eufaula is on fire. We would have shown the world what Eufaula is all about now. It’s back, and it’s back in a big way.”
While Herren can’t wait to get back to action, he knows the social distancing is necessary. As a diabetic, Herren is more at risk than most, so he’s strictly adhered to the advice of public officials. But it was a former military ICU nurse who really got the message across.
“He’s screaming at me, ‘This stuff is bad. It’s like a war zone, and I’ve been to war. I’m telling you, it’s bad,’” Herren explained. “One thing we can do, what we all should do is stay away from each other for the time being.
“We’ve got our keep distance and be smart about it, and hopefully the curve goes down, and in a couple more weeks we go back to life as normal.”
Herren said he even quit sneaking away to the lake, as ramps have been too crowded for his liking. But the homestead is getting into shape.
“I’m trying to keep it on the down low and stay home,” he said. “This week, I’ve pressure washed. I’ve cleaned. It's been a blessing because I’ve gotten caught up on things I’ve been putting off the past two or three years.”
Reiterating that the Elites dodged a major bullet with the tornado, Herren related a horror story about an event on Lake Eufaula where he first met a “bowlegged kid from Warrior, Ala., named Gerald Swindle.” He said he and Swindle tied for second in the early 1990s event that had the “worst mistake of any tournament official I’ve ever seen.” Despite storm warnings, the field was sent out. Herren was a bit leery, but ran 30 miles before the line of storms hit.
“I got caught in the middle of the lake, in one of the worst hailstorms in a bass boat I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I’ll never forget it.
“I always have and still keep a weather radio in my boat. This was before cell phones and weather radar. I turned that thing on. As soon as I did, it started screaming… "tornado warning" for my area. By the time I figured out what county I was in, it was on top of us. The sky turned green. My partner, he’s yelling, ‘We got to go. We got to go.’ I told him, ‘Son, we can’t go anywhere. I can’t see past those trees, and we’re liable to come out right in the middle of it.’”
Herren told him he was prepared to put the boat on the bank and lay down in a nearby ditch, but his companion was against that as he had seen some alligators.
“I said, ‘Hoss, if it’s between a tornado and an alligator, I’m going to whoop that alligator’s ass. I got a chance with him. I got no chance with a tornado,’” said Herren, whose boat was pummeled by hail bigger than golf balls. “I literally got my head up under one of the lids on the front deck and my partner got down under the console, just trying to cover up.”
The hail tore his boat up pretty badly, put cuts in his rain suit and left their legs black and blue. He said Swindle, on the other end of the lake, may have only experienced rain.
That’s how Tibbs described Tuesday’s tornado. Damage was reported in adjacent counties, but the tornado touched down at the Country Club of Alabama, a golf course community about 7 miles south of the Elite’s takeoff and weigh-ins at Lakepoint State Park, and went straight across the lake.
Tibbs said it might be awhile before Eufaula and B.A.S.S. can come up with a rescheduled date.
“We might be eating turkey when you all come,” he said. “We are looking forward to the Elites coming. Maybe everything will be straightened out in the world by then.”
