Perryville football team helped clean up Crosstown after 2006 tornado

Perryville, Mo., football player Michael Bachmann was eating chicken tetrazzini at a Pirates varsity dinner one year ago when he heard from some teammates that a tornado had passed through where his family lives on Route C.

Bachmann immediately returned home -- forgoing the game his team played that night -- to see if his family was all right. Everyone was fine, but his family's crop and cattle farm was not.

"I was shocked and didn't really know what to think," he said. "There was debris everywhere. I really couldn't get to my house. I had to park down the road."

For Bachmann and his family, Sept 22, 2006, is a day they said they will never forget. They lost seven outbuildings and they estimate that 130 of their 160 acres of land was damaged. The Bachmanns have reconstructed three outbuildings so far, and it could be another year before they are almost finished rebuilding, they said.

Besides just the initial damage, the family said they will also never forget the way the community helped. This effort included Bachmann's teammates.

Perryville High School football players, from left, Michael Bachmann, Chad Voelker and Craig Brueckner, talked recently about helping Crosstown's residents clean up the damage from the Sept. 22, 2006, F4 tornado. (Fred Lynch)

Went house to house

Two weekends after the tornado went through, the football team began at the Bachmann's house, branching out from there to assist other neighbors the next two days. They cleaned debris from destroyed buildings, chopped up fallen trees and helped salvage soybeans on the farmland.

"We divided up into four or five different trucks and we went house to house to see what we could do," Pirates coach Rick Chastain said. "We believe God is first and family is second and everything else is third. … We like to win and we don't like to lose on Friday nights, but it's just a game and it all comes down to family."

Craig Brueckner was one member of the Pirates who helped that weekend and also hours after the tornado hit. He left the team dinner because he had relatives living in the area. He ended up helping pick up tree branches that had fallen onto the roads.

"I kept checking the time to see that I wasn't going to be late for the game but then again making sure I could help as much possible," Brueckner said.

To thank the team, neighbors bought them lunch. The players sat and ate with those people they were assisting.

"It brought us closer together," Pirates teammate Chad Voelker said. "After the one that hit in St. Mary ... we never thought it could happen again, and then it did. I guess it was tough seeing one of our friends go through it that was on the football team."

Although the Bachmann family's farm was significantly damaged, the Bachmanns feel fortunate they were not hurt.

When the tornado struck, Michael Bachmann's parents, JoAnn and Kevin Bachmann, and his sister, Becky, 20, were at the East Perry County Community Fair.

Lucky escapes

JoAnn Bachmann said her two older sons, Jacob, 22 and Andrew, 21, were home from the University of Missouri for the weekend. She said she had been unable to complete some work that morning on farmland the family also maintains on Route U, so she left a note instructing Jacob and Andrew to finish it.

She said if her sons had not gone there to do it, they would have probably been in one of the barns that was damaged.

Additionally, Michael Bachmann's grandmother, Helen Wibbenmeyer, was in the family's house, which Michael said was the only building that was not damaged.

"A shed 50 feet away from [the house] got completely wiped out," Michael Bachmann said. "We were lucky, really."

The family said they also feel fortunate for the help of the football team and others.

"I was very amazed how the community and volunteers helped the whole area, donating food and time," JoAnn Bachmann said. "The memory of that is very strong."