My Story.

It’s 1:07am on March 3, 2020. It’s quiet. Eerily quiet. The smell of broken gas lines, broken wood and mud filled the air.  Dust and insulation made a haze around us and filled our lungs making all of us cough.  I looked around at everyone and miraculously no one was hurt. There was glass blanketing the floor and I was the only one with shoes on. I stood up and said, I’ll get everyone’s shoes.  We were all in shock at what happened so there wasn’t much discussion. I opened the door to the kids room and saw there were no walls or ceiling. It was like straight out of a movie. All the trees outside were gone or laying down like a bomb went off. The sky was an eerie orange. And again…it was silent…complete silence.   

I shut the door, looked back at my family and said “Well that room is missing some walls”.  I looked at Melinda and said “Let me see if I can get your shoes”. I opened the door to our bedroom and saw the same thing.  Walls gone, roof gone and one of the brick walls had fallen in and crushed our bed.  There was enough room for me to walk on that brick wall to get to the closet.  Melinda’s shoes where there, untouched.  I ended up going back to the kids room and finding their shoes untouched in their closet at well.  We were all grateful to have shoes but now needed to figure out what to do.  How do we stay safe?

Since 911 was busy, I called my cousin who lived in town, but no answer.

I called my Dad, who lives in Kansas City…he picked up!  I said “Dad, we’ve been hit by a tornado and I need you to call Jamie (my cousin) until he picks up so he can come get us…it’s no longer safe in our house”  My Dad just responded with “okay” and texted me about 10 minutes later saying he got ahold of Jamie and he was on his way to come and pick us up.

Once we got in Jamie’s truck, I felt like I could collapse. The adrenaline was starting to wear off and I could now feel that my back was on fire…from all the insulation that flew up the back of my shirt.  I felt tired, dirty, lost….but grateful, grateful to be alive, grateful my family was safe. Download the eBook to read more