As a Northwesterner, Jessica Borovina Smith saw tornadoes only in the movies.
There’s the classic scene when Dorothy Gale is locked out of the storm cellar in “The Wizard of Oz.” There’s “Twister,” too, a film about storm chasers.
Until last week, although the 28-year-old Smith now lives in tornado country, she had no firsthand experience with a storm cellar’s lifesaving value.
The 2001 graduate of Marysville-Pilchuck High School moved several years ago to Vilonia, Ark., her husband’s hometown. The couple met when Dustin Smith was in the Navy here, serving aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
Vilonia, about a 40-minute drive north of Little Rock, was in the path of destruction when hundreds of tornadoes ravaged several Southern states last week, killing at least 342 people.
Jessica Borovina Smith’s memories are now more vivid than the movies.
“It sounded like a big roar, like a freight train,” she said by phone Tuesday from Vilonia.
On April 25, a Monday, news reports of a moderate storm risk increased until all of Arkansas was on tornado watch. Smith said that means conditions are favorable for atmospheric rotation to touch down as a tornado.
“In a warning, you need to seek shelter. A tornado could drop out of the sky at any time,” she said.
The Smiths have an 11-month-old son, Wyatt, and Dustin Smith has a 9-year-old daughter, Madison. They have no storm cellar. With her husband at work, the young mother took her baby to her mother-in-law’s nearby home. That house has a steel-walled storm cellar dug into the yard.
By early evening, Smith was calling her husband as he drove home from his job as a driller with a natural gas company. “I told him to put the pedal to the metal, he needed to get home,” she recalled.
When news came that a tornado had touched down in Hot Springs, Ark., Smith said, “we knew it was pretty significant.”
“I went down in the cellar with Wyatt. And 10 minutes later the rest of the family and the neighbor’s dog were in the cellar,” she said. Her husband pulled into the driveway in time to make it inside the shelter, which Smith said is secured by big latches on the door.
“First we heard hail just pounding,” she said. Then came that roaring wind. “Then it was torrential rain,” Smith said.
On BlackBerry devices and other mobile phones, they followed the news. “We could tell on our phones it was over us — a super cell right over Vilonia,” Smith said. They called a family east of them, and learned the storm had passed. It was safe to come out.
The Smiths, luckier than many of their neighbors, returned to find that their home had been spared. They were without power for four days. Their trees were uprooted. But they don’t face the choice of either leaving or rebuilding.
The Associated Press reported April 26 that at least one person was killed in Arkansas, but Tuesday, Smith said the toll in the Vilonia area was at least four. Vilonia, described by Smith as a “one-stoplight town,” is about the size of Darrington.
As Alabama and other states hardest hit by the storms struggle to recover, the Snohomish County Chapter of the American Red Cross has sent eight volunteers to help. Chuck Morrison, executive director of the local chapter, said Tuesday that the volunteers are Steven Place, Will McMahan and Sue Larson, of Everett; Sue Wayland, of Stanwood; Sheryl Richmond, of Lynnwood; Frank Alishio, of Camano Island; Bob Leighton, of Edmonds; and Bill Westlake, of Seattle. All are in Alabama, where about 250 people died in the tornadoes.
“We’re proud that eight of our well-trained, very dedicated Snohomish County Red Cross volunteers have been selected to help address the sheltering, feeding, and physical and mental health needs of the thousands affected by tornadoes,” Morrison said.
Arkansas wasn’t as hard-hit as Alabama, but Smith can’t believe the destruction she sees. “It breaks your heart to drive through town. It’s total devastation,” said Smith, who helps at shelters with members of her church.
“We were very blessed,” she said.
Having now survived a tornado, Smith said, “I could go forever without having to do that again.”
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
Help victims
Donations to help people affected by tornadoes in the South are being accepted at the Snohomish County Chapter of the American Red Cross, 2530 Lombard Ave., Everett, WA 98201; online at www.redcross.org; or by texting REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10.
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