Rising Fawn Pilot Urged Travelers To Leave During Tornado Weather

By LYDIA BERGLAR
News Editor

During the tornado watches and warnings on the evening of May 20, several groups of travelers stopped at the Pilot convenience store in Rising Fawn to take shelter. While there was an active tornado warning in the Rising Fawn area, Pilot employees told the travelers that they needed to leave, which led the Sentinel to ask several other local gas stations about their storm policies.

Three local gas stations expressed sentiments along the lines of, “Of course we’d let people take shelter when it’s really dangerous outside.”

On the night of the tornadoes, one of the travelers recorded an argument between the Pilot employees and customers and posted it on her TikTok (under the username saltycandy6969).

Another eyewitness, Jessica Card, contacted the Sentinel, explaining her displeasure with the employees’ handling of the situation. Card and her husband, Alex, are not from around Dade County; they were passing through on their way home to Knoxville, Tenn.

In the video, the power appears to be out in the store. (There was a power outage in Rising Fawn around this time.) A male employee forcibly tells the group to leave, saying, “It’s a liability issue for us.”

One woman (not the one recording) was very vocal throughout the video, using foul language and refusing to leave due to the weather. Several others left the store, and Card reported that she and her husband left when asked, so they did not witness the situation’s resolution.

From off screen, someone who seems to be a female employee says, “If somebody falls, you can sue.” The vocal woman responds, “If somebody dies [in the tornado], we’ll sue you, so you want that?”

In the second half of the video, presumably filmed later that night, the TikToker explains that the female employee called Pilot’s corporate office. This employee then directed everyone to stay near the front of the store instead of forcing them to leave.

In the days following the incident, people left one-star reviews on the Pilot’s Google listing. Some of the reviewers may have been eyewitnesses, but at least one noted that he had simply viewed the TikTok. Matthew Jones wrote, “Staff tried to kick out people sheltering from an active tornado warning. Threatened to physically use force and call the police after being horribly disrespectful.”

Jennifer Garcia wrote, “Corporate needs to get involved. Been to plenty of Pilots when harsh weather was out and have never been kicked out. If anything, they have us try to come in out of our trucks as truck drivers to be safe.”

The Sentinel looked at the reviews while they were still up on Google, and Card sent screenshots of them, but a few days later, Pilot had removed the negative reviews.

The Sentinel visited the Rising Fawn Pilot to ask about the situation and the company’s policies during storms and/or power outages, but the employees could not comment. They gave the Sentinel the company’s media relations phone number. The Sentinel called and left a voicemail but has not heard back as of press time.

News Channel 9, however, briefly covered the incident and obtained a statement from Pilot which read, “Pilot is committed to providing a safe environment for our team members and guests, and demonstrating our company’s purpose of showing people they matter at every turn. Our standard practice for severe weather is to provide shelter for guests as long as it is safe to do so. We are reviewing our severe weather safety policies with all our store team members to ensure they are well-prepared for instances of inclement weather.”

The Sentinel also stopped by the BP/Kwik Serv 11 in Rising Fawn, the BP/Mapco in Trenton, the Shell/Eagle Express in Trenton, and the Circle K in Trenton to ask what these stores would do in situations of inclement weather.

The Kwik Serv employee took the Sentinel’s contact info to pass on to the manager.

The Mapco store manager said that of course people can take shelter at the store during inclement weather. If there’s a power outage, the store can’t sell anything, but that wouldn’t prevent the staff from allowing people to shelter in the store.

The Eagle Express employee said that when the store is open, people can take shelter there for the short-term (i.e. a few hours—not overnight or beyond the time of immediate danger). He said that for the sake of humanity, of course they would help their customers.

As for Circle K, a young employee said that travelers can take shelter there, and if the sirens go off or there is immediate danger, the employees lock the external doors and usher everyone present into the cooler. The manager then confirmed this statement, affirming that this is the procedure that all Circle K employees are trained to follow.