Remembering Maggie Delight Robinson, victim of the 2019 Beauregard tornado
Maggie Delight Robinson loved to travel.
She’d done so throughout her life, often with her aunt, Katie Hawkins, her cousin, Trevis Hawkins, and his siblings. She talked about traveling more in the future, according to Trevis, to locations such as Alaska or Africa. She was described by her cousin as “somewhere in the middle” between introvert and extrovert. She’d stay reserved at times, but felt most comfortable once she got to know you.
“If there’s anything she valued (most), I’d say traveling and friendship,” Trevis said.
The final trip the group took together was to Los Angeles, where they took the Amtrak Coast Starlight train to Seattle in November 2018. The Beauregard tornado hit four months later.
The storm
Sirens began sounding in Auburn, where Trevis was located during the outbreak. Phones began ringing off the hook.
On March 3, 2019, an EF4 tornado with winds up to 170 mph — the most powerful tornado rating outside of an EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale — rolled through Beauregard, a town with an estimated population of just under 11,000.
The “monster storm” had a track about a mile wide and 24 miles long, and the National Weather Service tracked two other Alabama storms that day, each rated EF1, in Macon County and in Barbour County, where the Eufaula airport had extensive damage. In total, six tornadoes cut through the southern and southeastern portions of central Alabama. Two passed through Beauregard, and the first of those was the EF4 twister.
The deadly Lee County storms that rolled in later that day were followed by freezing temperatures. The wave of storms that tracked through Beauregard continued from eastern Lee County through Smiths Station and across the Chattahoochee River into northern Muscogee and southern Harris County, causing more damage but no fatalities.
But the damage in Beauregard was catastrophic. Robinson, 57, was one of the 23 victims of the deadliest U.S. tornado since the Moore, Oklahoma tornado in 2013.
Ten members of Robinson’s familyhood died when the tornado struck, including Maggie, her cousin Raymond Robinson Jr., 63, and his wife Teresa Robinson, 62. The Robinsons have ties to the Jones, Stenson and Tate families, who also lost relatives.
Trevis drove into Beauregard once the storms passed. He said Maggie’s house was “completely gone” — stripped to the foundation.
“I was yelling out for people,” Trevis said. “No one was responding.”
One year later
In addition to travel and friendships, Maggie valued fitness.
Maggie and Trevis planned to join Clean Cut Elite, a personal training “bootcamp” exercise program in Opelika. Maggie told her cousin she had a “light pooch” she wanted to get rid of. Trevis laughed.
“I had a huge pooch,” Trevis said.
Trevis joined the group around six weeks before Maggie’s death. He weighed 223 pounds before he joined, describing himself as “not in the healthiest shape in the world.”
Today, he is down to 182 pounds.
“Her willpower and her desire to stay healthy, it made me continue to go,” Trevis said. “Because I know that’s what she would’ve done. Continued to be healthy and do the right things. That was my inspiration to focus on becoming a healthier person. Living better. Eating better.
“That’s how she has inspired me. ... She represented the best of us.”
