Our beautiful neighborhood, which had once contained 60 homes, now looked like a city dump. Only one house remained standing and with all the debris, I could not find ours. Even worse, there was no one to be found. My husband and I had been married just a few years. My boss sent me home early from work that afternoon in anticipation of an impending storm.
Office talk that day focused on a tornado that touched down in Michigan the day before.
Little did I know I was soon to face a similar monster. I picked up our daughter Jackie from the neighbors and hustled in the back door of our home just as blackness overtook the sky. I scurried into the hallway as a massive tree came down in our front picture window. I held onto Jackie as the world around us became pitch dark and the sound of a train roared in my ears. Suddenly we were airborne.