The tornadoes that devastated the Nashville area on Tuesday has hit the Tennessee Titans even closer to home, as defensive lineman Austin Johnson’s home “suffered extensive damage” and “is not livable.”
This comes from safety Kevin Byard, who told John Glennon of The Athletic about the unfortunate news of Johnson’s home.
Titans’ Byard says Austin Johnson’s Nashville home — in Hermitage — suffered extensive damage and is not livable.
— John Glennon (@glennonsports) March 6, 2020
This is absolutely awful to hear and is just one of the many sad stories of people losing their homes in the wake of this storm.
According to Ben Jones, Johnson and his family are OK physically and weren’t at home when the storm hit, per Jim Wyatt of Titans Online.
“He was one of the first guys we reached out to,” Jones said of Johnson. “Knowing his wife and our wives are close and we know that’s rough. I’m just happy he’s safe; they weren’t at home at the time, so that was great news. But I know we’ve offered him places to stay, showed him places he can rent, but we just want to be there for him because I know it’s tough. … When you come home and don’t have a place to go and all your valuables are in there, we wanted to make sure we’ve got something on his roof so he didn’t lose his valuables that were in there.”
Titans general manager Jon Robinson and head coach Mike Vrabel, as well players and other members of the organization, were in one of the impacted areas on Friday to lend some hands-on support.
The group delivered and unloaded supplies, and also assisted in the clean up efforts. It’s this kind of support that will help the people of Nashville get on their feet quicker in what is sure to be a long process.
Owner Amy Adams Strunk and the Titans Foundation have also donated $1 million to help relief efforts, with the NFL also supplying an additional $250,000.
If you’d like to lend a helping hand to the people of Nashville during this difficult time, make sure to check out this article by the Tennessean that lists several ways to chip in.