SLIDELL, La. — Slidell Police Sergeant Jake Morris was not unlike many parents across the metro area Wednesday. He had an essential job to do with his community in the path of some very rare severe weather. With schools closing and young children, he had decisions to make.
Sergeant Morris left his sons with his grandmother while he went on to work, expecting a busy day that at best would likely bring some flooded roads and power outages and at worst could have him needing to play an important role in rescuing people from danger.
Tornadoes, the type that Slidell Police information officer Michael Vinsanau said “rip people’s lives apart in a matter of seconds,” are different than hurricanes, which normally give first responders time to make arrangements to get their families out of harm’s way.
Morris was on the job when what was at least an EF-1 tornado, with swirling winds of between 86 and 110 mph struck just a block from where his children were with their grandmother.
Slidell Police shared what happened next with a Facebook post that has had thousands of interactions.
Story continues under video
A call between Morris and his young son captured a parenting moment of a combination of outward calmness and inner angst. He talks to his child, who seemingly didn't want to leave the safety of the bathtub where he sheltered from the tornado roaring nearby. Morris reassures him that things will be okay, all the while likely feeling concern over not having been his sons’ immediate protector.
“Fortunately they’re safe, but the reports of a tornado touching down, they were one block off of its path,” Morris said. “I will tell you, out of the 14 years I’ve been doing this job, I haven’t been that scared or nervous. I know the boys are scared. Just not being able to be with them to assure them it’s going to be okay. It’s pretty hard.”
Morris said he made a couple of calls with his boys that made the physical and emotional distance between them only a tad easier.
“That allows me to put my focus on the jobs that need to be done at this point. It’s pretty gut wrenching knowing that your kids are close to the path of destruction.”
