Tennessee band director plays piano atop rubble of church destroyed in tornado

A Tennessee middle school band director on Wednesday climbed atop the rubble of a former church that was destroyed in an Easter Sunday tornado to play a piano that miraculously remained intact after the twister.

“I came driving by, and I saw the piano and I knew it had more music in it,” Tracy Coats told News Channel 9.

The news station captured the remarkable performance as the crew was reporting from Chattanooga’s First Wesleyan Church when Coats spotted the instrument.

Coats, a teacher at East Hamilton Middle School, used a portable folding chair to play the tune against a backdrop of high piles of debris.

The setting is somewhat familiar to Coats, as she plays the piano every Sunday at a church in Dalton, the report said.

First Wesleyan Church and many other structures in the area were leveled in Sunday’s tornado that carved a path of destruction across the area.

“My heart is so broken for those who have lost so much,” Coats told the news station.

“We’re not made to carry this kind of load. It’s too much. Too much for any of us, but when we give that to the Lord he carries it for us and we can find peace in the middle of the storm,” she said.