If there’s one thing we should learn from the survivors of the Saturday night tragedy is that the sound of a freight train precedes the swirling havoc of a tornado.

Millbury residents know that sound. They wake up to blaring horns and the screech of steel wheels on steel rails. They stop for, dodge around and race to beat the railroad gates. One time, in 2000, a frustrated local man parked his 1986 Chevy Nova on the track to stop the trains that regularly stop him. The protest was short-lived. The 6,700-ton train nudged the Nova down the track.

Jeannine Hughes, 75, knows that sound too, and now she knows the sound of a tornado. She lives in a duplex on Main Street, nine doors down the same block where several homes were destroyed and a mother and her four-year-old son were killed.

Monday morning, 36 hours after the tornado, she recalled those few terrifying moments before the tornado touched ground. “I moved some shoes out and went into the closet and had a pillow with me, but I didn’t think to take my cell phone. I only use it in emergencies. This was an emergency but I didn’t think to use it. I took the regular phone, but when the hail came the power went out. Then, I heard the freight train coming and it was so loud I thought it had to be right here.”

“I wasn’t afraid at all though, I thought, ‘Well Lord if it’s my time, it’s my time.’”
 

Michael and Deborah Eppard and their three children, ages 8, 6 and 4, live five houses from the destruction. Their home is on a five-foot crawl, but the entrance to the crawl is outside. They have lived here 10 years. When the sirens sounded, Michael yanked stuff from under the stairwell and threw down mattresses, couch cushions and blankets. The Eppards woke the kids and moved them to safety where they fell back asleep.

“Then they (the sirens) stopped for 20 minutes. I started looking out the window and I could hear, just like they say, the sound of a train…”

That drove the Eppards under the stairwell again. They covered the kids. Then the house started shaking. Then they heard a heavy creaking sound, like when you close an old, heavy door hung on rusted hinges.

“I was almost certain our house was going to go, but 30 seconds later, it was all done. I looked out the back and across the field I could see three funnel clouds when the sky lit up.”

The Eppards spent the rest of the night in the basement at the home of their former pastor, Jerry Siler. Michael is now considering the best way to access his crawl space from inside the home.
 

Robert and Sue Okulsky, live four houses from Ground Zero. They were at a late-night showing of the movie Robin Hood. When they returned home at 12:30 a.m., the street was cordoned off. They went to their home, assessed the damage as minimal, but less than an hour later they were forced to evacuate due to a suspected gas leak.

William and MaryAnn Wittman live adjacent to the series of homes ripped from her neighborhood. She was home by herself, her husband being at their campsite near Tiffin.

MaryAnn was tired that night. She had been dealing with the issues that accompany moving her mother into an assisted living facility. She went to bed early and woke when the sirens went off. She got up, got a flashlight, her medicines and some water and went into the basement.  

She was alone, the hail was plastering the siding and she began to doubt her decision. In the past, her basement had sheltered her and her neighbors when sirens warned of approaching tornadoes. She recalled the comments from one who questioned the wisdom of going to the basement. Would the house just fall on them? What would happen if the pipes burst? Would they drown? These fears blew through MaryAnn while the wind blew outside. She descended just to the second basement step and made her stand there.

“As soon as I shut the door, the house shook and I heard a train and I thought when I open that door again our walls are going to be gone.”

When the tornado passed, MaryAnn thought, “Well, that’s not bad.” She opened the basement door and walked into her garage. The wall was bowed. She could see daylight. “The garage was full of blown insulation like someone had a popcorn party,” she said.

MaryAnn opened her front door and looked across the street. She did not expect to see what she saw. “Oh, my God, there was a war out here. And, then I noticed there’s no houses over there. Where did they go?”

MaryAnn needed to be with someone. She turned to go next door, but the house was no longer there.

“Where’s the house,” she said to herself. “Then I panicked and thought, ‘Oh, my God, Where are they? Then, I heard them hollering and screaming.’”

MaryAnn joined other neighbors to help the Swartz family climb out of their basement, homeless but alive. The Wittman home was still standing. The damage was minor compared to her neighbors. It included separation of the garage wall, a blown window and water damage in two bedrooms.
 
Across the street, 40-feet from his neighbor’s fence, which stood as the demarcation line between minor damage and total destruction, Dave Dunaway checked the generator he was using to provide power for his home and that of a neighbor. He and his wife Marie had just returned home when the sirens went off. They had been at a party to celebrate Marie’s retirement from Northwood schools. He remembers hail peppering his windows and siding. Then there was that familiar noise. “When they say it sounds like a freight train…It was. A much-louder freight train.”

The Dunaways immediately sought shelter in their basement. When Dave emerged from the front of his home, he saw a broken window and some damaged siding, repairs he could handle. So, when he walked around to the backyard and saw three of his neighbors’ homes wiped from their foundations, he was stunned, saddened and awed. But, he also felt blessed. Dave and his son Paul, 27, a Senior Airman in the United States Air Force, built the home in 2003 as a project to help Dave through a period of depression following a divorce. His son and his daughter, Amy, also gave Dave a cat, Jasmine.

As Dave chatted with The Press, Marie came out of the house and whispered in his ear. Dave put his head on his wife’s shoulder and they hugged each other. When he returned to the interview, tears were in his eyes. Marie had just informed him Jasmine, who hadn’t been seen for 36 hours, was found safe, but still frightened. She was under the couch.

“She’s part of the family,” Dave explained. “She’s our weather vane. It’s something with her ears. We may not be able to hear lightning and thunder sometimes, but when she cowers, we know bad weather is coming. She took off. She ran for cover before we did. She’s our lightning rod.”

Monday morning, 36 hours after the tornado, the people who live on Main Street and their families and friends and volunteers were picking up debris and meeting with contractors. Jeannine Hughes was delivering snacks and water to her neighbors, MaryAnn Wittman had returned the credit cards and driver’s license she found strewn in someone’s yard and Dave Dunaway was running across the street to make sure his generator was delivering power to his neighbor.

All were saddened by the deaths of a mother and her four-year-old son, both of whom lived just a few yards away. All were awed by the destructive power of nature. All were relieved they were spared.

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