Thursday, June 17, 2010, started out like the kind of lazy summer day we dream of during the long, cold winters here in Minnesota—sunny, warm, a little hazy.
School was out. My 13-year-old daughter, Jessica, was at a friend’s house. My older daughter, 16-year-old Mariah, was working, lifeguarding at the community pool right across the street from our house. I knew the kids were splashing and laughing and I thought, They’ve got the right idea. Maybe I can take it easy today too.
That’s one of the great things about working as an Avon representative. I can set my own hours. I’d already finished a big project, something I had been putting off for a long time. With Jessica’s help, I had spent that Monday giving my crowded basement office a much-needed makeover. We’d moved things around and reorganized my product inventory, so now there was a whole lot more room down there.
There wasn’t much more I had to do. I was supposed to pick up Jessica later that afternoon—her friend’s house was about a 15-minute drive away—but that was the only thing on my list. My husband, Craig, a truck driver, was on the road in South Dakota. It was just me and the dogs at home. Our two Labrador retrievers, Sadie and Lacy, were out back. Joe, our Shih Tzu, stuck close to me as usual. He doesn’t do well in the heat, especially when the air was as heavy and humid as it was that day, so he stayed inside.
I was still down in my basement office when Jessica called. “Mom, can I stay over one more day?” she asked.
Her friend’s parents were okay with it, so I said, “Sure. I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”
When I went upstairs, I noticed the sky outside had darkened. No big deal. Summer storms are pretty common in central Minnesota. You just duck inside, marvel at the lightning show and wait for the skies to clear.
I idly considered what Mariah and I would have for dinner. Jessica called again. “What’s up?” I asked. “Did you change your mind?”
“Mom, you’ve got to turn on the radio right now,” she said. “There’s a tornado warning.”
I told her to be careful and to listen to her friend’s parents. Then I hung up and flipped on the radio. The tornado was headed our way—and getting closer.
As if to punctuate the news, there was a loud clap of thunder. Rain started coming down hard, pelting the windows. The wind picked up. Tornadoes had swept through our area before, but we had never taken a direct hit. I wished Craig were here with me. I would feel a lot safer.
The phone rang again. This time it was Mariah. She sounded worried. “Mom, there are seven of us still here at the pool,” she said. “We’re supposed to take shelter in the maintenance building, but we can’t all fit. Is there room for everybody in our basement?”
“Yes, bring them right over,” I said. “Quick.”
Within minutes, seven kids—six girls and one boy—came racing into the house and down our basement steps. I carried down chairs from the dining room and arranged them in my office so that they all would have someplace to sit.
Mariah kept an eye on our little Shih Tzu. Our two Labs were in their kennel in the backyard, where I thought they would be safe.
Now all we could do was wait. The kids were talking nervously amongst themselves. I crossed the basement to where the laundry was and started folding the clothes, just to have something to do.
Just then the phone in my office rang. I grabbed it. It was my mom. “Are you all in the basement?” she asked. “Stay safe and—”
Right then the phone went dead. Then the lights flickered and went out.
All eight of us hit the floor, as if by reflex. Rain beat down. The wind built to a howl. The house rattled and shook. Glass shattered upstairs. Had the picture window in our dining room blown out? I wondered. Mariah clutched Joe. All the kids were crying.
I tried to shelter the kids and Joe with my arms, but how could I possibly protect them all? “Please Lord,” I begged, “keep us safe! Keep us safe! Keep us safe!” It was all I could think to pray.
All of a sudden there was a terrible whooshing roar. Then abruptly, eerily, everything just stopped—the noise, the violence. I cautiously lifted my head. Silence. “I think it’s over now,” I said. “Is everybody okay?”
All seven kids said yes. Thank God!
I got to my feet. Light was coming down the basement stairs. Not a good sign. That meant something had happened to the garage.
“Stay where you are,” I told the kids. “I’ll go up and see if it’s safe.” There was debris and wet insulation all over. I climbed through the mess to the top of the stairs.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Our garage was gone. I turned to the right, where my kitchen was, and gasped. The entire side wall of the house was gone, sheared off by the tornado. But somehow our dishes were still stacked neatly on the shelves in the cupboards, untouched.
I made my way outside and looked up. “Oh, Mariah, honey, I can see right into your room,” I called down to her.
That’s when I remembered the dogs. I walked toward the backyard, yelling for Sadie and Lacy.
Slowly a figure emerged from a ditch on the side of our house. Sadie! She headed toward my voice so I knew that she could hear me, but she was dazed and weaving unsteadily. She finally got close enough that I was able to grab her collar then handed her off to one of the kids, who had come up the basement stairs to check on me.
From the look of Sadie, it appeared that the tornado had carried off the doghouse with her in it then dropped it some distance away. No sign of Lacy, though. My heart ached. Poor Lacy…
The rain started up again. I headed back down to the basement to talk to the kids. I had just gotten to the bottom of the stairs when a man came racing down, the father of one of Mariah’s fellow lifeguards. “Gotta get out of here, everybody!” he shouted. “There’s a gas leak.”
We ran up the stairs as fast as we could. It was only then that I realized the opposite wall of the house had been torn off too. I could see right through the house!
We piled into the dad’s SUV. Who should wander into the yard just then? Lacy! From what I could tell at first glance, she seemed fine. Somehow we fit everyone—seven kids, three dogs and two adults—in the SUV. He took us across town to his house, which had been spared.
The landlines weren’t working well. I badly wanted to talk to Craig and tried calling him on my cell phone but couldn’t get service.
And Jessica. Since the tornado touched down here in Wadena, most likely her friend’s house hadn’t been in its direct path. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself.
The other lifeguard’s parents agreed to watch the kids, and half an hour later I went back to our house. I was walking around the yard, trying to make sense of it all, too shocked to cry, when Jessica ran up.
Her friend’s aunt had driven her as close to our house as she could get. Jessica stared at the ruins of our home and burst into tears.
“Oh, Mom, our house…what are we going to do?” she said.
I took her in my arms and held her. “It’s just a house,” I said. “We’re all safe, even the dogs, and we’ll be fine.”
God is watching over us, I thought. I’d never, ever been so sure of that in all my life.
Jessica had been at her friend’s, out of harm’s way. Across the street, the community pool was a scene of utter destruction. The maintenance building was obliterated. That was where Mariah and the other six kids would have taken shelter if I hadn’t been home. And if I hadn’t just cleared out my office, there wouldn’t have been room in our basement for everyone. Somehow Sadie and Lacy had been protected too.
We had been in the safest place during that terrible tornado, the shelter of God’s arms. And just as I told my daughter, he watches over us still, in our brand-new home.
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