SLIDELL, La. – Deadly severe weather tore across the South and along the Gulf Coast on Wednesday, with powerful thunderstorms producing tornadoes that impacted communities such as the New Orleans suburb of Slidell in Louisiana.
The National Weather Service sent out a storm survey team in the aftermath of the storm and said preliminary information showed damage near Old Spanish Trail was consistent with at least an EF-1 tornado.
And video shared by the Slidell Police Department shortly after the tornado showed damaged storefronts and vehicles, debris scattered and fallen power lines and utility poles.
FOX Weather Correspondent Robert Ray was in Slidell on Thursday to survey the damage and speak with those who were impacted by the storms. And among the “catastrophic damage” came incredible stories of survival.
Tornado survivor Patricia Gill was emotional when she spoke with Ray about what she saw during the storm and said it was something she had never experienced before.
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“I get spurts of emotions, and they just come and go,” she said. “I’ve just never really been through something like this. Hurricanes are a bit different than tornadoes… A hurricane, you can kind of prepare emotionally and physically, and I guess, emotionally and physically, you can prepare and evacuate. A tornado, you just don’t realize they’re coming for you.”
Gill said that when the district decided to close schools because of the weather, they prepared for heavy rain.
“We didn’t prepare for a tornado,” she said. “We just prepared for a bunch of rain.”
Gill was at work when the tornado struck and said she saw “a bunch of gray clouds.”
There was no visibility at all, she said, and that’s when everything dramatically changed.
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“One of the girls screamed at me, ‘It’s a tornado! Take cover!’” she recounted. “And that’s when we tried to go get some of the guys who were actually in the shop that you can see was destroyed.”
Gill said one of the men in the shop was able to get inside just in time before the building started to collapse.
“So, basically everybody that we had here survived with their life,” she said.
She said that, thankfully, her husband, who is a local firefighter, was home with their children when the storm hit.
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“I’m just thankful that he was at home with them, because it hit at my house too,” she said.
Gill said that the next steps would be to help those who need help with repairs after the storm.
“I couldn’t ask for a better crew to work with,” she said. “Because they all, you know, made sure that everybody was safe and we all hugged each other. It was just phenomenal for sure.”
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Another survivor was Donnie Payne, and he told Ray that he knew the tornado was close when the sky started turning dark.
“It became nighttime, actually, and the rain was real hard,” he said. “But all of a sudden, the barometer seemed to change. The temperature changed. And then the rain seemed to, instead of moving in one direction, was swirling around.”
At that moment, the tornado was on the business’ doorstep.
“And the doors, they swung open, and then they slammed shut. And then they swung open again,” he recounted. “And I was pretty sure at that point, that’s when the tornado was. So, we all ducked into the offices inside the hallway.”
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Payne said that as he and his coworkers were trying to get to safety, debris was being launched from across the street and slamming into the building.
He said the terrifying ordeal lasted about 30 seconds and that nobody inside was hurt.
“This is the strongest part of the building,” he said. “We had two guys over where the building no longer exists but had escaped at the last second. They literally dove in as the building was coming down.”
Payne said the next step is to try and rebuild the business.
“The owner said yesterday we have a secondary location where we’re going to set up an office,” he said. “We’re going to salvage all the equipment that we can get out of here, and then we’re going to set up shop in the secondary location.”
After that, Payne said, “We’re going to tear it down and rebuild.”