‘The whole building is gone, it ripped it apart’: Madison Church members recount 2023 tornado

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A church in Madison held a prayer and worship event on Monday to mark one year since the deadly tornado of Dec. 9, 2023.

The Community Baptist Church congregation came together on Dickerson Pike a year after a tornado leveled their building with dozens of people inside.

More than 30 people gathered to pray and sing in the now-empty space where their beloved church once stood. The pastor and members said that even a year later, they’re still shaken up and heartbroken. Instead of crying, they said they celebrated what they did have.

“We were scratched up, we were bruised, broken, but we are alive,” said church member Brenda Lucas.

Lucas said she remembers the storm like it was yesterday.

“One minute I’m sitting at the table dressed, and the next minute I’m on the floor and the whole building is gone,” Lucas said. “The whole building is gone. It ripped apart.”

Lucas and about 30 other members were inside the church’s life center building for a banquet on Dec. 9, 2023, when they said all of a sudden everything went black.

“I remember thinking to myself, ‘That sounds like a train. I’ve never heard a train out here.’” Lucas said. “Within the time, before I could finish that thought, I was on the floor and my face was in the water and I’m thinking, ‘Am I drowning?’”

Lucas said rain was pouring into the church. After the storm left, Lucas and the other congregation members saw the aftermath. Their entire building and life center was gone and there was nothing but debris.

“I went to turn around to try and get up and I couldn’t because one of the metal beams had fallen on me,” Lucas said.

Lucas’ friend Shirley Presley was next to her when the beam fell. Presley and a few others tried to free Lucas before firefighters arrived, but they couldn’t.

“It’s hard to describe. It was devastating,” Presley said.

Pastor Vincent Johnson, who was also in the church when the tornado hit, said the only thing on his mind was the safety of his congregation.

“You never stop thinking about it,” Johnson said. “We didn’t lose one life. I think of that weight alone of what it would have meant to have lost loved ones, church members.”

Lucas and dozens of church members spent the afternoon on Dec. 9, 2024, celebrating their blessings.

“When I think about it being a year today, look how God has kept us,” Lucas said.

Johnson said his church staff spent 2024 holding services at an elementary school down the street and planning to rebuild the church at 3838 Dickerson Pike, the same location the church stood in years before the tornado.

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