‘Unimaginable’: Family hides in closet as tornado destroys house around them
MORGANFIELD, Ky. (WFIE/Gray News) - A Kentucky family is thankful they’re still alive after an EF-3 tornado destroyed their home as they cowered in the closet.
As storms rolled in Friday evening, Alvin Wells and his family hunkered down in their Morganfield home. They went downstairs as the weather worsened, and moments later, a tornado appeared.
“It seemed like a longer time, but it was probably seconds. My family went to the corner of the closet, and I was in front of the door, holding it, as I could hear the noise and the pressure on the door,” Wells said. “When we were inside, it sounded like a freight train coming through our house, a very loud, unsettling noise.”
When the tornado ed, Wells and his family emerged from the closet to find the storm had taken everything. The home the family built themselves back in 2017 was gone.
“It was just unimaginable, a cool silence. As you looked around, everything was destroyed,” Wells said. “It’s our dream home, what we always wanted. It was our final home.”
In the aftermath, Wells is thankful his family survived.
“My main thought is my family survived, and none of us were harmed. That’s the most important thing. We can rebuild a house, buy new things, vehicles, whatever it is. We can do those things again. We lost some memories, but we salvaged some of them when we were up here going through the house,” he said.
He also noted how lucky they were.
“The storm, if it had moved even three inches closer to the closet, we wouldn’t be here, so I definitely believe a higher power had something to do with it,” he said.
The family is optimistic and plans to rebuild their dream home. Wells says he wouldn’t be able to do it without the outpouring of community they’re receiving.
“We are going to rebuild here, just as it was. That’s the plan,” Wells said.
Preliminary survey results from the National Weather Service show the tornado that went through Morganfield on Friday was an EF-3 with peak winds of 155 miles per hour.
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