‘Cuddled up in the bathtub & just prayed.’ Tornado stuns residents of rural Missouri town
Rachelle Wolf woke up Wednesday morning to the faint wail of sirens in Nevada, Missouri, and called her husband to alert him.
“He jokingly told me to run for cover because no tornadoes ever come to Nevada,” she said with a laugh later on Wednesday, surrounded by debris shredded by a tornado that did just that.
She opened a window, saw the sky getting darker and heard the noise before running to brace herself in the bathtub.
“Then, bam,” she said. “Everything fell on top of me.”
Officials have said it was indeed a tornado that rocked the Nevada Oaks apartments where Wolf was staying, along with a stretch of Vernon County about 100 miles south of Kansas City. The storm ripped up trees, damaged buildings and shattered glass as it roared through town Wednesday morning, leaving a “substantial” amount of damage in its wake, officials said.
A National Weather Service survey team found EF-1 tornado damage extending from southwest of Moundville to Nevada to northwest of Walker. Eight train cars were knocked over, widespread tree damage was recorded and homes were found with roof damage, a report from the weather service said. “Numerous” businesses had varying degrees of damage, the report said.
The tornado path extended nearly 17 miles and had a width of 600 yards, the weather service said. Maximum wind speeds reached nearly 100 mph.
After the tornado passed, Wolf clambered out from under the rubble in shock and began to register the damage around her. Her friend Cheyenne Coale later helped her pick through the debris and salvage what items they could.
“It’s just a mess,” Wolf said.
‘Gotta keep pushing on’
Nevada Fire Department Chief Taylor McKlintic said Wednesday afternoon the storm did “significant” damage to homes and businesses in town. One person was rescued from under a vehicle, and a couple people who were trapped under homes in Moundville also had to be rescued, he said.
No one needed to be taken to a hospital, and no deaths have been reported, he said. Officials said earlier in the day that one person had been injured.
Coale had been in line waiting to drop off her kids at school when the tornado sirens began sounding around 7:30 a.m. She abandoned that plan and cut across the parking lot seeking shelter.
“I probably looked like a madwoman,” she said.
“I’m grateful that none of my stuff got damaged,” she said. “Me and my kids are OK. I just got a new apartment yesterday. These things happen, you just gotta keep pushing on.”
Riley Worthen, who is a little more than three weeks into studies at the Missouri Welding Institute in Nevada, walked around his living space at Nevada Oaks assessing the damage Wednesday. He believes the roof was just seconds from blowing off, a bathroom wall that protected him was pushed out by a couple inches.
There are wood fragments here from an office a couple hundred yards away, shattered glass there. The scene was baffling.
“Me and two buddies literally just cuddled up in the bathtub and just prayed,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going on, we didn’t have no idea how we were going to react.”
