“They went off for a little bit and then they stopped, and then maybe five to 10 minutes later they came on again,” he said. “Then I got active weather on my phone, it said tornado watch, then it said tornado warning.”
Watt said he walked to the front of his house to look out the window and heard the tornado coming.
“I heard, just like they say, it sounded like 10 freight trains, and I knew (with a) tornado warning (and) this sound, a tornado’s coming,” he said.
Watt grabbed his dog Chi and “had to make a split-second decision” on where in his house they were going to go because he doesn’t have a basement. Instead of the bathroom, he went to the back of the house.
“I’m glad I didn’t go in the bathroom, it’s gone pretty much and a lot of debris, so we would have got injured,” he said. “I went to the very back of the house, and I hunkered down on the floor beside the couch and up against a chest freezer, throwed some pillows on the dog and tucked him underneath me, and pulled a big sleeping bag over us, and about that time all hell broke loose.”
Watt said the tornado hit his home, which he said “seemed like forever” but probably only lasted about three minutes. He said the “solid block building” next door was also destroyed, as well as his garage and four other buildings around him.
He found a small American flag Friday morning in the debris, one that was not his. He picked it up and put it on the railing of the front porch while holding his dog in his arms.
“It’s lucky I’m alive, lucky the dog’s alive, lucky that it didn’t just blow our house to pieces like it did that block building. But it did do some severe damage for sure,” he said. “It was definitely a rough experience, but I’m just happy me and the dog came out of it unhurt.”
Watt said he’s unsure if his family will rebuild their house; it depends on several factors, such as the insurance company.
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