Yeah, Rebecca,
what we're seeing here is absolutely tragic and it's hard to
even mention that there's any good news in any of this,
but there is some good news in that nobody was injured.
There are no fatalities here in this part of
Salina which is um which is really good news.
This is also not a very
densely populated place.
Uh uh The,
if we're, if we're saying this is a possible tornado,
it may have touched down in sort of the agricultural parts
of, of Salina and then pushed over here.
There are about more than a dozen homes that see significant damage. But
what the O
Goz family is,
is is dealing with right now and I want to show
you is by far the worst um part here in Salina.
Now, the Auto
Goz family moved here in 1992.
They have about three or four homes just on this one plot of land on these 20 acres.
Look what it did to this home.
The walls are gone,
roof obviously gone.
It feels like it just lifted up and then pushed over to the
side because all the all the debris is down on the ground here.
Um, if you wanna
Matt, if we can show them
the pantry, the pantry is the only thing that is standing,
which is surprising you see the washing machine there as well.
That's the only thing that's standing, the front door is gone.
Every, obviously everything else is gone.
And I mean, obviously everything that we're, that we're walking on is
all glass.
We have some shingles here and obviously you have all
the stuff that was inside the house also here.
Now, Maria,
Maria, the grandmother
um was staying inside the house.
Uh As soon as they heard about the sirens heard the sirens family called over
and brought her into this house where her daughter lives.
That's where they stayed, they stayed inside
uh the closet
and that's where they huddled and stayed safe.
Um Obviously they're counting their blessings right now because
um, they understand if she was still inside there, she would, she would not be alive.
Um And that's,
that's a tough thing to hear.
Um
Here, there was a, there was a travel trailer here
and I'm gonna introduce them in just a second here.
This is where Juan and Juanita uh lived.
And as you can see absolute devastation, there is uh
nothing
very little you can salvage here.
And I've got Juan
Juanita.
You're trying, I know you're trying to find some stuff you're still looking for
your laptop I DS.
Now, you also, I know Maria,
um
just left just within minutes before this tornado, we watched the action of the TV.
And
I asked her to go get mom out. We got our son and we took off
next door and literally walked in the house. No, high.
No, nothing just got in the closet and boom, that was it.
So you drove from here to the house in the back
and, and what would you say
about
a
football field down this way? And, and I'm sure you were,
you were hauling that way?
Oh, yeah.
And
literally just walked in. No, hello. No,
anything else. And just,
that's it.
Juanita. When you
did, you heard the tornado? You felt it? What, what did that feel like?
Oh, it was, it was scary. I mean, you, you heard
the loud noise and my aunt just said get inside and we took off running
and get in and it just, I mean, it just, stuff was flying everywhere.
You're starting to.
Yeah,
I stayed by the uh,
stupidly,
I stayed by the back deck area looking out the
window and it looked just like a normal windstorm.
But once it cleared,
we just literally walked through that deck a few minutes before a couple of minutes.
Now, you couldn't walk through there. Uh, the barn door and uh debris and
the barbecue, everything was out there just like that.
It got covered, there's debris,
there's debris everywhere across three or four different homes on this plot.
Right. Juanita, I can tell you're shaken.
What are you, what are you feeling in this moment in this moment?
It's just hard
because, you know,
we've never dealt with this and we never thought we would have to,
but
we're alive. So
that's what matters.
Everything else can be
replaced but not our lives. So
I had a chance to talk to your,
to your mother,
Maria.
She, she escaped from this home with the help of a grandson,
our
son and us. Yeah, he was in there and
literally went in there and said, let's get out.
And my nephew came from over there, drove
over here,
picked her up, took her there.
We grabbed our son,
got in the car and we took off that way and we were going to go in that ditch over there.
But then I called my aunt and she's like, no, come to my house and we,
that's when we went inside her house because
if we probably would have been over there,
we probably wouldn't be here
today.
I'm sure if you hesitated at all to get
mom out of the house. Yeah, they wouldn't be here either.
So,
but
we're blessed that we're here today. And like I said,
we have a lot of family and friends that will help us out.
I was told um by
Rojo,
your father that a lot of families,
a lot of families coming down to, to, to help out
and family coming out to
help us clear under bri, get whatever we can save and just, that's about it and bring
whatever food and water.
Although I found some water.
So, uh
we'll be good. We'll be good. How do you describe what you see?
I saw this at night.
Uh Once I knew this passed over,
I came over with a flashlight and that's kind of where I
went,
you know, got emotional cause
I mean,
our place used to be here storage and
it's just wow, you can't believe like
I do on the other side of it as an entrance agent, but now on the other side of it as,
as uh you know, someone that it happened to and that's,
it's hard to describe it. It's pretty bad
one.
You,
you're a blessing to your family to be at least an
insurance agent who knows how to handle in these situations.
You know, we're seeing stories like this.
Um
up and down this road, we are on county road 101, right. This is 101
and this is actually a private road
um into here that leads to three homes and I think
you're an insurance agent. One, we're talking what three homes,
55 vehicles.
I know if we have to put numbers on these things
and A TV
S um and we have trailer as well.
Um
And obviously a whole lot of memories in these homes that
Juan and Juanita are trying to pick through right now to see if they're still there,
the pictures, the I DS, all the things, the photo albums,
the things that are very hard to replace, but,
uh, they are counting their blessings because, um, this could be, obviously be
a lot, lot worse,
Mariel.