LENOX, Iowa — Austin Miller was home watching “PBS Kids'' when the panicked phone call came from his mother.
Get in the laundry room, now, she said. There are tornadoes coming.
The 11-year-old rode out the storm Wednesday afternoon inside the clothes dryer as the twister demolished the second floor above him, the roof collapsed and debris swirled about.
“If he wouldn't have been in that laundry room, it would have come right down on him,” said the boy's mother, Jessica Miller, less than 24 hours after a tornado wrecked their home. “I'm proud of him for doing that.''
The town of Lenox and its 1,400 or so residents were pummeled by two tornadoes. No deaths or injuries were reported.
There was plenty of damage and a few close calls. While countless trees were knocked down, windows broken and shingles strewn about, Fire Chief Kirk O'Riley estimated that only a few homes would have to be condemned.
“We're just thankful it was not any worse than it turned out to be,” O'Riley said Thursday. “It's devastation, yes, but bricks and mortar can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.”
Jessica Miller was working at the grocery store downtown, Cheese's Food Center, when her manager told everyone to get in the cooler because of a tornado warning.
She got on the phone and called Austin. She told him to take shelter.
“I said: Austin go to the laundry room,” she said. Their home has no basement.
Why? he asked.
“Just get into the laundry room!”
Austin did as his mother told him. Jessica Miller hopped into a car with a sister-in-law and tried to make it the five blocks back to the house.
But they could barely see. Something looming and gray filled the sky and shrouded the town. Debris spun about.
“There was stuff flying, (tree) limbs ... it's just like it filled the sky.”
They couldn't make it. Instead, they had to ride out the storm in the basement of Jessica Miller's parents.
“I couldn't get to him,” she said. “That was the worst. That was the worst thing.”
Inside the windowless laundry room, stuff started swirling around as well.
Austin opened up the door to the dryer — it's about 1-by-1½ feet wide — and squeezed in, shutting the door behind him. As he did, some glass struck the outside of the door and shattered.
For several minutes he heard the tornado pull his house apart, the sound of glass breaking, of items falling from shelves.
Five minutes after things died down, an aunt, Jessica Wambold, came to the house to find him. Only then did he climb from the dryer.
Mother and son reunited at the home of her parents. She grabbed hold of him and hugged. “She wouldn't let go,” Austin said.
“I held on to him forever,” Jessica Miller said.
After the storm, as Austin and some friends walked around a city park across the street looking at the damage, she called him several times, just to ask if he was OK.
Austin said he was “freaking out'' during the storm.
“It was pretty scary,” he said.
When a home doesn't have a basement, the best option for shelter in a tornado generally is the lowest level of the home or the smallest room, said Shane Searcy, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Des Moines. Searcy said the pitfall of taking shelter inside an appliance is that it could be tossed about in the storm.
The next day the house was sodden with water from the rain that followed the tornadoes. Most of the second floor was gone, as was part of the ceiling of the laundry room, which opened to clear blue sky.
Does his mother think getting in the dryer saved his life, or kept him from serious injury?
“It probably did because of the way things were blowing around inside that house. There was glass everywhere.”
Indeed. The living room was a mess of shattered glass and bits of leaves splattered against the walls and the ceiling.
Austin's was not the only close call. Less than a half-block away, Jeff Bush, 62, huddled in his bathtub with his German shorthaired pointer named Reggie as the tornado ripped the roof from his modular home.
It reminded him of riding out hurricanes in the Navy. He thought he might die. For some reason, he thought about when he was a child, about a bumblebee that stung him, about riding his bike.
“You think of a million things in half of a second.”
He showed a visitor his devastated home. He looked up at the sky where his roof once was and said it was a miracle no one was hurt.
He walked farther into his living room as Reggie followed him across broken glass, and looked at a knee-high pile of debris.
“How depressing,” he said.
Most of the town was consumed with the cleanup Thursday. Many residents had broken windows, damaged siding and missing shingles to contend with. Others took chainsaws to damaged tree limbs or raked debris from their lawns.
Still, much of life went on as normal. Most of the stores downtown appeared open. And though many students were helping with the cleanup, classes were under way at the Lenox school district campus on the south side of town.
That's where Austin Miller was. Mother and son hugged each other goodbye as Austin prepared to return to class.
“Mommy will walk you back in there,” Jessica Miller said.
“No,” Austin said. “You don't have to.”
“Yes, I have to.”
By Andrew J. Nelson taken from http://www.omaha.com/article/20110513/NEWS01/705139902/0#boy-rides-out-storm-in-dryer
Get in the laundry room, now, she said. There are tornadoes coming.
The 11-year-old rode out the storm Wednesday afternoon inside the clothes dryer as the twister demolished the second floor above him, the roof collapsed and debris swirled about.
“If he wouldn't have been in that laundry room, it would have come right down on him,” said the boy's mother, Jessica Miller, less than 24 hours after a tornado wrecked their home. “I'm proud of him for doing that.''
The town of Lenox and its 1,400 or so residents were pummeled by two tornadoes. No deaths or injuries were reported.
There was plenty of damage and a few close calls. While countless trees were knocked down, windows broken and shingles strewn about, Fire Chief Kirk O'Riley estimated that only a few homes would have to be condemned.
“We're just thankful it was not any worse than it turned out to be,” O'Riley said Thursday. “It's devastation, yes, but bricks and mortar can be rebuilt. Lives cannot.”
Jessica Miller was working at the grocery store downtown, Cheese's Food Center, when her manager told everyone to get in the cooler because of a tornado warning.
She got on the phone and called Austin. She told him to take shelter.
“I said: Austin go to the laundry room,” she said. Their home has no basement.
Why? he asked.
“Just get into the laundry room!”
Austin did as his mother told him. Jessica Miller hopped into a car with a sister-in-law and tried to make it the five blocks back to the house.
But they could barely see. Something looming and gray filled the sky and shrouded the town. Debris spun about.
“There was stuff flying, (tree) limbs ... it's just like it filled the sky.”
They couldn't make it. Instead, they had to ride out the storm in the basement of Jessica Miller's parents.
“I couldn't get to him,” she said. “That was the worst. That was the worst thing.”
Inside the windowless laundry room, stuff started swirling around as well.
Austin opened up the door to the dryer — it's about 1-by-1½ feet wide — and squeezed in, shutting the door behind him. As he did, some glass struck the outside of the door and shattered.
For several minutes he heard the tornado pull his house apart, the sound of glass breaking, of items falling from shelves.
Five minutes after things died down, an aunt, Jessica Wambold, came to the house to find him. Only then did he climb from the dryer.
Mother and son reunited at the home of her parents. She grabbed hold of him and hugged. “She wouldn't let go,” Austin said.
“I held on to him forever,” Jessica Miller said.
After the storm, as Austin and some friends walked around a city park across the street looking at the damage, she called him several times, just to ask if he was OK.
Austin said he was “freaking out'' during the storm.
“It was pretty scary,” he said.
When a home doesn't have a basement, the best option for shelter in a tornado generally is the lowest level of the home or the smallest room, said Shane Searcy, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Des Moines. Searcy said the pitfall of taking shelter inside an appliance is that it could be tossed about in the storm.
The next day the house was sodden with water from the rain that followed the tornadoes. Most of the second floor was gone, as was part of the ceiling of the laundry room, which opened to clear blue sky.
Does his mother think getting in the dryer saved his life, or kept him from serious injury?
“It probably did because of the way things were blowing around inside that house. There was glass everywhere.”
Indeed. The living room was a mess of shattered glass and bits of leaves splattered against the walls and the ceiling.
Austin's was not the only close call. Less than a half-block away, Jeff Bush, 62, huddled in his bathtub with his German shorthaired pointer named Reggie as the tornado ripped the roof from his modular home.
It reminded him of riding out hurricanes in the Navy. He thought he might die. For some reason, he thought about when he was a child, about a bumblebee that stung him, about riding his bike.
“You think of a million things in half of a second.”
He showed a visitor his devastated home. He looked up at the sky where his roof once was and said it was a miracle no one was hurt.
He walked farther into his living room as Reggie followed him across broken glass, and looked at a knee-high pile of debris.
“How depressing,” he said.
Most of the town was consumed with the cleanup Thursday. Many residents had broken windows, damaged siding and missing shingles to contend with. Others took chainsaws to damaged tree limbs or raked debris from their lawns.
Still, much of life went on as normal. Most of the stores downtown appeared open. And though many students were helping with the cleanup, classes were under way at the Lenox school district campus on the south side of town.
That's where Austin Miller was. Mother and son hugged each other goodbye as Austin prepared to return to class.
“Mommy will walk you back in there,” Jessica Miller said.
“No,” Austin said. “You don't have to.”
“Yes, I have to.”
By Andrew J. Nelson taken from http://www.omaha.com/article/20110513/NEWS01/705139902/0#boy-rides-out-storm-in-dryer
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