When the storm started there was some lightening which knocked out the electricity. Around 8 p.m. the lights went out, not uncommon so, we lit the oil lamps. At around 8:30 the wife asked me if I thought she should change from her pj's to regular clothes. I told her I thought that was a good idea. At 8:45 I heard a helluva noise (not the freight train noise everyone talks about) and told her to get up and come with me, we headed towards the back of the house and she asked where we were going, I said to the basement, she said, I don't have my shoes on then turned to go to back to the living room. I grabbed her shirt collar and shoved here and the dog into the bathroom and then pushed her and the dog into the shower, I turned and shut the door and held onto the door knob for all I was worth and the tornado hit instantly.
A huge rumble went through the house and for about 30 seconds, every door in the house opened and shut at least 20 times. When it subsided, I opened the door and another smaller twister went through rattling the doors again, I shut the door again holding onto the knob.
We moved into a friends rental house and I can tell you this, for the next couple weeks I got very anxious every time another storm came through.
The people from the National Storm Center came out and said it was 200 feet wide with 100 mile an hour rotation making it a category 1. There was more than one funnel as there were trees torn up in a path 600 feet wide down the valley we live in.
The neighbor lady's barn got hit and killed 5 calves other than that, we were the only ones in our area hit.
They had 29 funnels across the area that night that tore other folks places up but, they were 20 miles east of us.
