You may have seen the Youtube video by one of the survivors, but this article tells his story, along with the stories of each of his fellow survivors and how they each came to be together in the store. The author’s description details the terror of what they went through in the few short minutes of the tornado’s impact on the store, and the horror of the tornado itself:
“The tornado stretches twenty thousand feet into the sky. It is three quarters of a mile wide. It is not empty.
It is carrying two-by-fours and drywall and automobiles.
It is carrying baseball cards, laptop computers, family photo albums.
It is carrying people, as naked as newborns, their clothes stripped away like tissue paper.
It is carrying fragments of the Walmart where Carl and Jennifer met, of the church where Donna worships, of three of the nursing homes where Lacey works.
It has traveled six miles through the city, and now it is carrying a great deal of the city within itself.”
And be thankful.