“The kids [at school] were complaining because they didn’t have Wi-Fi. And [my son] said, ‘I don’t have a house.’ He called and he just kept saying, ‘I’m so mad. I’m so mad.’”
-* Jill Shimer,* a Kokomo, Ind., residentKOKOMO, Ind. – When they got back to their home in Kokomo, Jill Shimer and her husband, Scott, had no idea what to expect.
The Shimers returned from Cincinnati around 8 p.m., roughly four hours after the tornadoes tore up the south side of the city. Police and debris caused them to take a different route through the neighborhood.
Scott said the first thing they saw were two trees missing their tops in front of their house. That is when they knew their house was most likely severely damaged.
“The crews were working to clear the road right in front of our house, and I lost it,” she said. “I thought I was going to see nothing [left of the house].”
They live in a neighborhood called Cedar Crest, which is now known for receiving the worst of the damage from two EF2 tornadoes that tore through Kokomo on Sunday. Dozens of homes and businesses in Kokomo were damaged in the storm with wind speeds of up to 120 mph.
The storm destroyed about 50 homes and injured at least 32 people in Kokomo, according to the Associated Press. One of them was on the ground for about 10 miles.
When the Shimers got to the house, it was dark, and they hadn’t picked up their house keys yet from Scott’s mother in Fort Wayne, who was watching their kids.
“We just thought about it all night about what the inside looked like, but thankfully, we weren’t there when it happened,” he said.
Some rooms toward the front of the house only have minor damage. The master bedroom in the back of the house’s walls were knocked down or missing and at least a foot high of insulation covers the bedroom’s floors. They have the clothes they packed for Cincinnati only because the rest are lost in the insulation.
Before crews cleaned up the large debris, there was a tree down and a roof from their neighbor’s house in their front yard. The telephone pole in their backyard is broken in half with a transformer lying next to their house.
Scott said he keeps finding stuff that isn’t his, and he doesn’t know where a lot of his stuff has gone.
The plastic children’s slide that was in their backyard is now in their neighbor’s backyard with a 2-by-4 foot board straight through it. There also is a 2-by-4 foot board through the wall in their bedroom.
Jill, a seventh grade teacher at Taylor Middle School, said the worst part of it so far is the reaction of her 9-year-old son, Owen.
The oldest of four children called her from school Tuesday morning.
“The kids [at school] were complaining because they didn’t have Wi-Fi,” she said. “And he said, ‘I don’t have a house.’ He called and he just kept saying, ‘I’m so mad. I’m so mad.’”
Her other kids, a 7-year-old and 2-year-old twins, don’t really know what’s going on, she said. They have driven by the house with the kids, but the environment isn’t currently safe for children.
Jill said they originally hoped to be back in the house by New Year’s Day. She said they aren’t being optimistic at this point, and they are looking for a place to rent for the next few months.
If the Shimers were home when the tornado swept across their neighborhood, they would have sought shelter in the storm shelter of their neighbor, Brian Harless.
Harless is an annually-trained storm spotter who invested in an underground storm shelter in his backyard about eight years ago. He said it is the best $3,500 he has ever spent.
He said he was showing his son the tornado from the ladder in the shelter when large hail started falling around them. They took cover, and about 30 seconds later, their ears started popping, and they heard the roar of the tornado.
He said the shock of having such a serious experience didn’t set in until later that night when he and his family checked into a hotel. His immediate reaction was to laugh and make a joke.
“I opened up the hatch, I looked at the house, started laughing, turned around and told my wife, ‘Hey, that remodeling job you wanted, it’s going to happen now. We’re missing our roof,’” Harless said.
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