A toy shelf protected a family that took shelter in a Walmart, and in an IHOP restaurant, patrons who crowded into a walk-in cooler lived to tell the tale. But not everyone was so lucky when the terrifying tornado touched down in Joplin, Mo.
‘Didn’t think we were going to make it’
Kelley Fritz and her husband spent part of Monday rummaging through the remains of a storage building. But they quickly realized they’d never find the things they had stored there or the many belongings that were ripped from their home after the twister tore away the roof.
When the worst of the weather had passed, their sons, both Eagle Scouts, went out to survey the neighborhood and quickly realized every home was destroyed. “My sons had deceased children in their arms when they came back,” she said. “My husband and I went out and saw two or three dead bodies on the ground.”
Fritz was surprised she had survived. “You could just feel the air pull up, and it was so painful. I didn’t think we were going to make it, it happened so fast.”
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‘It was just total devastation’
A high school principal had just finished presiding over graduation when he learned that his school had been destroyed.
Joplin High School held its graduation Sunday afternoon at Missouri Southern State University. Principal Kerry Sachetta was among 75 to 100 people still lingering on campus when the twister hit. They took cover in a university basement.
After the storm passed, Sachetta began receiving text messages warning him about severe damage at the high school.
He found the top part of the auditorium gone, the band and music rooms caved in, windows blown out and his office missing its roof.
Fifty-year-old trees outside the school had been stripped of their limbs.
Two churches across the street were “completely gone,” and Sachetta was stunned by the condition of the nearby Franklin Technology Center.
“You see pictures of World War II, the devastation and all that with the bombing. That’s really what it looked like,” he said. “I couldn’t even make out the side of the building. It was total devastation in my view. I just couldn’t believe what I saw.”
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‘15 minutes of hell’
Joshua Wohlford and his family were saved by a shelf of toys.
With the tornado bearing down on their trailer, Wohlford, his pregnant girlfriend and their two toddlers sought shelter at a Walmart.
They escaped serious injury when a shelf of toys partially collapsed, forming a tent over them as they huddled on the floor.
“It was 15 minutes of hell,” Wohlford said. “We were buried.”
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Quake survivor: ‘Overwhelming’
“It’s just overwhelming,” said Lois Richardson, 75, who moved to Joplin three years ago from California, where she survived several earthquakes. “I’ll take two earthquakes to one tornado any day,” she said. “There’s nothing that compares to a tornado.”
Richardson, who was thrown against a wall in her house by the force of the twister, said she saw a tree fly horizontally past her window.
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‘You’re totally powerless’
A pair of Missouri lawmakers survived the tornado by huddling with other customers in the kitchen of an IHOP restaurant that was destroyed. State Rep. Bill Lant said he was just getting ready to order dinner for his family when fellow Rep. Bill White noticed debris twirling in the clouds. Within in a minute, a crowd of about 40 diners had scrambled into the kitchen — some squeezing into a walk-in cooler, others such as Lant hiding under the stainless food preparation tables.
“It was just a huge roaring,” Lant recalled Monday. “When all was said and done, the walls were gone, the roof was gone, but we were all still there.
“I think the only reason we’re here is all the prayers that were going up over the roaring of the tornado,” Lant said. “It’s a horrifying event. It’s something you’re totally powerless to do anything about.”
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The view from Tuscaloosa
Willie Walker is still trying to put a new roof on his house in Tuscaloosa, Ala., because of the wave of tornadoes that killed more than 230 people across Alabama last month, but he took time Monday to do what he could for victims of twisters that killed scores in the Midwest.
“We’re praying for those people,” said Walker, a retired Marine, as workers stripped the remaining tar paper off his roof before a new layer went on. “We know what they’re going through because we’ve been there already.”
Nerves remain raw in Alabama from the storms that ravaged much of the Southeast on April 27. The storms killed more than 300 people and damaged thousands of homes and businesses across the region, so news of the devastation in Joplin, Mo., hit hard for people still repairing their homes or mourning the loss of friends and relatives.
In a month, Joplin will be where Tuscaloosa is now. Walker said the days will pass amazingly fast.
“You don’t have time to think when you’re working all the time,” Walker said.
