BY MICHELLE KEY
MICHELLE@
OPELIKAOBSERVER.COM
LEE COUNTY — Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones has not forgotten the scene when he arrived at the intersection of Highway 51 and Lee County Road 38 in Beauregard. He arrived in Beauregard a mere 15 minutes after the EF-4 tornado had ripped through the area leaving a path of destruction that was nearly a mile wide. He said one thing that stood out is the overwhelming scent of pine from all the trees that had been broken.
“I didn’t know how large the tornado was at that time, but I remember thinking the damage stretched nearly a mile. It was just incredible,” Jones said in an interview with The Observer in 2019.
Jones said he was at his home in Auburn, watching the weather when he heard Josh Johnson from the Montgomery television station say something that he will always remember.
“We have debris in the air,” Johnson said. Jones said he knew then that this was going to be a difficult situation.
“From that minute the tornado came through to current present day, the impact to me has always been the people of Beauregard and Smiths Station,” Jones said. Strength, toughness, resilience all come to mind. Literally within minutes of the storm had gone through and there were already people out there standing shoulder to shoulder helping their neighbors. It is something I will never forget, and it reminded of why Beauregard is such a special place.“
It did not take long for Jones to decide to invoke the mutual-aid agreement and request assistance for other sheriff’s departments throughout the state.
“A tribute to the other agencies and organizations that came in, particularly Beauregard Volunteer Fire Department. They knew what to do and they came in and immediately jumped into action. Our sister agencies in law enforcement — Auburn Police Department, Opelika Police Department, the state troopers – ALEA and their people – were a part of the overall operation and coordinating with one another with confusion.”
Having arrived on scene around 2:15 p.m., Jones and other first responders and volunteers would search through massive amounts of debris for nearly 10 hours before making the decision to halt the search-and-recovery efforts until daybreak Monday morning.
One of the biggest obstacles of the recovery efforts was accounting for everyone that lived in the area. Emergency personnel had no way to know who may have been home during the storms, who may have been injured and already transported via private vehicles to the hospital or those that had not been there at all during the storms.
“We had over a hundred people injured and they just went everywhere. We did not know that at the time, and we thought, ‘What if they are here?’”
Jones said that in spite of the challenges that every single person had been accounted for by Wednesday afternoon, a mere 72 hours following the storms.
“To account for everyone, injured and unaccounted for in just three days I thought was an incredible feat,” he said. “They [the investigative division] did a great job.”
Jones gave a tribute to the other organizations that showed up.
“A tribute to the other agencies and organizations that came in, particularly Beauregard Volunteer Fire Department. They knew what to do and they came in and immediately jumped into action. Our sister agencies in law enforcement — Auburn Police Department, Opelika Police Department, the state troopers – ALEA and their people – were a part of the overall operation and coordinating with one another with confusion.”
He spoke about how he helped his deputies and staff to stay focused on the job at hand and praised them for the work they did.
“It was a lot of reminding them to stay focused on their training. I told them, these people are hurting, and they need you to help them, so it is basically one of those things where you have to be strong for these people. They are on their knees right now and we’re going to put a handout and help them up. So, focus on the job, focus on your training and focus on the fact that they need you more than any other time right now. And they did. To this day I am so very proud of our personnel at the sheriff’s office. They did just a phenomenal job in their performance that day and being professional and doing everything that needed to be done in many cases without even being directed. They just knew the right thing to do because that is the kind of people they are. Education and training are the key and that is really what got them through it, but their hearts are all in the right place and they knew what to do instinctively to be there not only physically but emotionally for the families.”
In the midst of the recovery efforts, Jones and his department was tasked with provided on ground support for a visit by then President Donald Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey.
“We’ve have had presidential visits before, and we have prepared for that so I kind of knew the drill and that helped a lot. I knew what they would need. We all got together at once and started planning. We were able to shift gears for a little bit and then shift back.”
The Trumps and Ivey arrived on Friday and toured the parts of Beauregard most heavily affected, met with then mayor of Smiths Station, F. L. “Bubba” Copeland and victim’s family members.
“Sometimes when these types of disasters happen, people leave and never come back,” Jones said. “But in smaller-knit communities like Beauregard, so many people stayed right there and said, ‘No, we’re not going anywhere. We will start over again.’
Jay said that relationships have changed in a good way since 2019.
“We’re a little bit closer, a little bit more personal in a good way with the community. I think that is very important for us to always work to achieve and maintain the personal relationships that we have with the people that we serve and certainly Beauregard is a prime example of that prior to and certainly after March 3.”
I hope that other areas of the country are fortunate enough to have a Beauregard, in their area, a community like Beauregard, where they are. We are so fortunate to have Beauregard here.