One Meramec student talks about her experiences after the worst tornado in approximately 50 years tears through her neighborhood.
Rory Sullivan
– Staff Writer –
When an EF-4 tornado ripped through Bridgeton, Mo., on April 22, it left behind a trail of wreckage: toppled homes, flipped automobiles and uprooted trees. One student at STLCC-Meramec witnessed the aftermath of the tornado after she discovered that her mother was caught in the path of the destruction.
Amanda Fay, who lives with her boyfriend in Kirkwood, was visiting her boyfriend’s mother when she received a phone call from her mother, Patricia.
“We got a phone call and she told me ‘The house is gone, the house is gone,’” Fay said.
Fay said she thought the storm was going to hit her area in Kirkwood, but she was shocked to find that it actually landed in her mother’s neighborhood in Bridgeton.
“I was panic-stricken. I literally started crying my eyes out. We drove all the way out there,” Fay said.
When Fay got back to her old neighborhood in Bridgeton, only two out of 14 homes were left standing. Since then, she’s been working to determine what is salvageable and what is not.
Fay said all of the family’s cars were totaled, furniture was ruined, and the entire computer room was blown out. No one was injured or killed, including the Fays’ six pets.
The Fays and other neighborhood residents received assistance from the community shortly after. Home Depot, in partnership with Service International, brought approximately 90 people to assist families affected by the storm. Brad Collins, store manager of Home Depot’s Bridgeton location, was there to help the Fays less than a week later.
“Basically what we did was come out and get her personal belongings from out of the basement that were salvageable and get them into her U-Haul van,” Collins said. “We helped her transport two vehicles over to her temporary residence.”
According to Collins, the organized nature of Patricia’s home is what made the recovery of some of her belongings possible.
Collins loaded up the Fays’ U-Haul van with the items Patricia had kept stored in the basement on shelving units and in tote bags. Items in other parts of the house, Collins said, are unlikely to turn up.
Collins said the damage in the neighborhood ranges from mild to severe.
“You’re up there and you’re looking at the devastation on this whole block and some homes are standing, some are totally gone, some are partially there, and almost all of them are uninhabitable at this point,” Collins said.
Fay said while the physical destruction of her home is a great loss for her, it is the memories that she will miss the most.
The place where her grandmother spent her last five years of her life is now gone, and the room where Fay once slept is now destroyed.
“You always think it won’t happen to your family,” Fay said. “But… it did.”
