Union City – A EF3 tornado with winds of at least 150 mph tore through a small Branch County community, killing three people and injuring 12 others.
James Taylor, 63, said he got the tornado warning on his cell phone and tried to gather his dogs and get to the basement but ran out of time.
“I made it right to that window right there with the two dogs,” he said. Asked if he thought the house was going to go, he answered, “Yeah, with my two dogs, cuddled down. ‘Hang on, girls.’ I didn’t know if the house was gonna go.”
His story is echoed down almost every street in Union City.
Megan Burnett said she and her three older sons rushed with her young daughter to the basement.
“We got down in the basement, it started to shake, back wall, tucked down,” she said. “I have a four-year-old daughter, and I’m thinking, ‘Is this it?’”
Will and Kara Klein said they had to wrangle their seven children while their vehicles were crushed.
“The kids are all panicking, worry about the animals, neighbors, a lot going on,” Will Klein said. “I pulled the cellar door closed, it vacuumed, said, ‘Oh crap.’ It happened that fast.”
For those families, everyone is okay, and they say the damage can be fixed.
It is not the same story a mile down the road, where dozens of homes were leveled in an instant and where three Union City residents lost their lives.
“I know some of the families that have lost people there,” Burnett said. “I feel a lot of guilt. ‘Praise God you’re fine.’ There are people that aren’t fine.”
Now the next chapter is the cleanup, power restoration and whatever this small town needs to do to find normalcy. In terms of getting power back on for those without it, the city brought in extra crews, hoping it should only be a few days.