Rolling Fork couple Tracy and Tim Harden saved lives on March 24.
Close to 30 years ago, Tracy Harden got out of a car in her hometown of Eagle Lake, looked up, and saw a lineman on a pole.
The lineman was Tim Harden of Twin County Electric.
“I was with my mom, and we were walking to a store when I first saw him. I looked at him and fell in love. I told my mom I was going to marry that man,” Tracy Harden said recently while standing next to her husband, Tim, in Rolling Fork.
“I was hanging a transformer when she looked up at me,” Tim said.
Today, Tracy, 48, and Tim, 62, are rebuilding the restaurant they have co-owned for 17 years, Chuck’s Dairy Bar.
Although he’s not a lineman anymore, Tim works full-time as a meter reader for Twin County after a break from the co-op industry to help run his uncle’s farm and a stint with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Their restaurant, a Rolling Fork hamburger institution, was destroyed by an E-4 tornado that swept through the tiny Delta town on the night of March 24 of this year. The tornado leveled most of the town and killed 14 Rolling Fork residents.
None of the customers or seven employees at Chuck’s Dairy Bar that night were among the dead. They all easily could have been, if not for the quick thinking of the Hardens.
The couple made sure all their employees were inside the restaurant’s walk-in freezer while the tornado barreled through the community.
When it was all over, the entire restaurant was in pieces except for the freezer and the people inside.
The tornado, the restaurant, and Tracy got plenty of local and national media attention — including an email from Fox News asking if she was willing to travel to Nashville to accept an award on national television. Fox News wanted to give Tracy a 2023 Patriot Award. Specifically, the Fox Weather Award for Courage.
Tracy said she didn’t deserve an award. She just did the right thing for her community.
“I don’t want to do that. That’s not me. I can’t accept that award,” she said.
In addition, Tracy said she is painfully shy and anxious and couldn’t even imagine stepping on a stage on a live television show.
Tim convinced Tracy to accept the award.
“He said, ‘just think what it will do for the community.’ I would be accepting it for the right reasons then,” Tracy said.
Doing the right thing for her community has been a hallmark of Tracy’s life since her arrival in Rolling Fork years ago. Whether going to Washington, D.C. to tell the U.S. Senate about the flooding in Mississippi Delta communities and advocating for pumps or what happened on the night of March 24, Tracy said she believes she wound up in Rolling Fork for a reason.
“I just want to be a good person and make the town a better place to live,” Tracy said.
In my head, I was thinking that kind of thing doesn’t happen here. That happens in other places.
Tornado
For Tracy, March 24 started out much differently than the way it ended.
“It was a beautiful day. I was outside at lunch playing with my grandson. My daughter sent me a message and said she wanted Thomas (Tracy’s grandson) to come home, to bring him home,” she said.
The restaurant was busy that day with farmers coming in for lunch at a steady clip.
There was talk of bad weather, but Tracy said she heard customers and people in the community say it wasn’t going to be too bad, just some rain and wind.
Around 7:30 p.m. while just a few customers were inside eating, Tracy was working on payroll.
The few customers who were eating left. There was one table with two men — hunters — who had just ordered hamburger steaks.
Right around 8 p.m., Tracy got two texts from family members telling her to find a safe space because there was a tornado on the ground.
“In my head, I was thinking that kind of thing doesn’t happen here. That happens in other places,” Tracy said.
The lights started blinking and then went out completely.
The two diners managed to get to safety.
Tim started shoving everyone in the freezer. There were nine people squeezed into the freezer — Tim, Tracy, and seven employees.
While they were inside the freezer, everything began shaking. The walls of the restaurant were collapsing, and Tim yelled, “I see the sky” as the roof of the freezer was torn off.
Tracy said everyone was soaked and had debris all over their clothes and in their eyes.
Then, everything stopped.
They couldn’t get out of the freezer because there was so much debris blocking the front of the door.
They called 911, screamed, and prayed.
A man removed the debris from the freezer front door to let everyone out.
When they got out, the couple saw that the two motels they owned behind the restaurant were destroyed. The 40 or so mobile homes behind the restaurant were demolished as well.
“It was chaos,” Tracy said.
Nashville
Fast forward eight months or so to Nov. 16 when Tracy and Tim drove to Nashville to accept the Fox Nation award. They hardly told anybody about it beforehand, but posted a Facebook note the day they left.
“We got so many nice messages of encouragement from people,” Tracy said.
Tracy said she picked out what she thought was the perfect dress for the event three days before. When she put it on in Nashville before the ceremony, she said the dress was all wrong.
Luckily, she had a dress she had ordered from Amazon that was still in a box in the back of her car. That $54 green dress is what she wore that night at the awards.
When she was backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, where the event was held, Tracy said it was very nerve wracking.
“I kept thinking I can’t do this. We need to go home,” she said.
The Fox Nation staffers told her a video would be shown to the live audience and then, after being introduced, she would go out on the stage to accept the award.
“But I knew if I watched the video, I would lose it. I had to cover my eyes and ears.”
Tracy held her composure better than she thought.
“It was a wonderful experience. It wasn’t about me. It was about our town.”
People always came here to share their news. Good news, bad news. They felt comfortable with us.
Rebuild
Construction on the new Chuck’s Dairy Bar continues as employees serve up burgers and other tasty goodies in a temporary food trailer nearby.
The company that supplied the freezer that protected Tracy, Tim, and their staff on March 24 has donated a brand new, $40,000 freezer as well as an ice cream box for the new Chuck’s — Master-Bilt in New Albany.
Tracy said the plan is for the new Chuck’s to be open by Feb. 1
She wants to get back to the rhythms of life in Rolling Fork, like it was before March 24.
The community, as it rebuilds after the devastation, yearns for the routine and habit of Chuck’s prior to the tornado as well.
“People always came here to share their news. Good news, bad news. They felt comfortable with us,” Tracy said.
