BY MICHAELA YIELDING FOR THE OBSERVER
LEE COUNTY — A time of bliss and family fun turned out to be a time of distress for the Vickers family of Opelika as they traveled back home from Tennessee during the winter storm that pummeled the southeast last week.
Morgan and Christina Vickers, their daughter 14-year-old daughter M.K. and 7-year-old twins Jackson and Alex vacationed in the Smoky Mountains alongside Morgan’s brother, Peyton Eller and his friend, Chris Price.
The group arrived at their rented cabin in Sevierville, Tennessee, on Jan. 17 to enjoy the three-day MLK weekend. However, the trip soon turned harrowing once Winter Storm Enzo started battering the southeast.
According to Morgan, who works at the Brown Agency in Opelika as a property manager and real estate agent, the original forecast predicted only one to three inches of snow in the Gatlinburg area, with Sevierville expecting even less. However, once the storm arrived the group found themselves under seven inches of snow.
Though originally planning to leave on Monday, they decided to leave a day early, but lack of a snow shovel to dig through the thick ice and snow coating the cabin’s steep driveway made leaving on Sunday impossible. On Monday, Morgan, Christina, Eller and Price used brooms, dustpans and anything they could find to try to break the ice, but their attempts were unsuccessful. Morgan and Christina successfully made it down the hill in their car, but Eller and Price weren’t as fortunate. Their truck slid into an embankment and got stuck at the bottom with no way to get back to the top.
As they waited, Morgan spotted a snowplow going up an opposite road and ran to stop the operator. Though he couldn’t plow the hill, he promised to drag Price’s vehicle out of the embankment and back to the cabin after he finished his routes.
Running low on food, the family was concerned they would be stuck at the cabin until Thursday, so Eller and Price hiked five miles one way to the nearest store for supplies. Then, on Tuesday morning, the cabin’s heat source started struggling, and the temperature inside dropped to 50 degrees. Worried they would lose heating or that the power would go out, the group decided to make a second attempt to leave.
“All I could think about was my kids,” Morgan said about the drive down the hill. “It’s a very eerie feeling, and you feel powerless because you’re in control of the vehicle, but you’re not in control of what’s under the vehicle. I drove very slowly and was very careful, but every little slip and slide, my anxiety grew. When we got down, we were all just like, ‘Thank God.’”
The Vickers began their trek back to Opelika, while Eller and Price made their way back to Dadeville and Camp Hill.
Winter Storm Enzo hit the southeast of the United States, battering the lower half of Alabama, parts of Georgia and Florida on Tuesday. Snow in Alabama is relatively rare, with it sticking being even more uncommon. The storm pushed Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to declare a state of emergency and caused dangerous conditions that closed roads and halted travel on interstates.
Lee County Emergency Management declared all roads in the county impassable.
The Vickers made their way south on the interstate to Atlanta but quickly rerouted when family members called to warn them about the road conditions forcing I-85 to close. On the backroads, semi-trucks and other big vehicles had broken up most of the ice as the Vickers made their way back home. Though making good time, road closure notifications popped up over and over as the Vickers neared LaFayette, Alabama.
On top of icy roads in Chambers County, Morgan’s view grew limited as night set in. She puttered along in first gear as they made their way up a steep hill that was at the end of a blind curve. Following the advice her father had given her about driving in the high spots of the road to keep traction, she drove in the middle of the road. As they slowly made their way, another car drove around the bend.
“I saw headlights coming around the curve and I just knew with them going downhill that they were not going to be able to stop on a whim,” Morgan said. “So, I had to get back into my lane, which was a low spot, and as soon as I did, it completely turned our car sideways and the other car just barely hit us.”
Though both cars were able to stop and everyone was able to get out, the man in the other vehicle told the Vickers he couldn’t help much as he was out of gas. As he helped them try to straighten out their car, the Vickers’ car rolled back and slipped into an embankment.
“It was terrifying,” Morgan said. “The kids were screaming. We were just so upset, and we were by ourselves at this point because we had split off from Peyton and Chris, and it is in the dark in the middle of the county. It was scary.”
Not long after, a man appeared in a jeep to check on them. His name was Larry Clanton. Though he couldn’t move the Vickers’ Toyota SUV or transport the family all at the same time, he made sure to keep an eye on them.
“He reminded me of my grandfather that passed several years ago, and it just kind of made me think that it was my grandfather coming to save us,” Morgan said. “He was so sweet. He just kept telling us, ‘I’m not going to leave you, I’m not going to leave you.’”
“Cars kept passing us and not stopping, and he kept coming back and saying he wouldn’t leave us,” she said. “It really helped us because we were so scared.”
The family called Morgan’s father-in-law, Ken Vickers, to help get them out, but after numerous attempts, they all realized he wouldn’t be able to retrieve the car out of the embankment. The family decided to abandon their vehicle and have Ken bring them back to Opelika. The problem, however, was that Morgan, Christina and their children would have to cross the icy, blind curve to get to Ken, who had to park on the other side of the road.
“Not only were we in the middle of a hill, but we were also at the end of a blind curve, and we had to cross with all of our stuff across the road in the dark,” Morgan said, adding that while crossing, Christina slipped on the ice and fell, injuring her back.
Though the ice and snow have finally melted away, the Vickers family still feels the effects of their harrowing journey home.
“We all are kind of traumatized,” Morgan said.
