Last Friday afternoon, Roger Slatten got a call from a friend letting him know a tornado was spotted near his home in Elkhorn, Nebraska, a suburb of Omaha. He rushed to the house, where he lived with his wife, Lindy, who was at work, and his brother, Royce. Roger called his brother to warn him and tell him to grab their dogs and head to the basement for safety
But they didn’t have time to make it there, because, within a minute, a tornado with winds of at least 136 miles per hour slammed the house. The brothers were on the stairs trying to find one of their dogs when the house started to crumble around them. “We could feel the floor separate from the foundation,” Roger says. “As soon as the wind got under it, it just vaporized the upper end of the house.
The brothers locked eyes briefly, right before the tornado sucked them up and threw them from the house. They thought it would be the last time they saw each other, fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Roger was pummeled with debris before hitting the ground and being pinned by rubble, while Royce landed in the backyard and was able to run to a neighbor’s house. They were relieved to find that they each survived, as did their dogs. While their home was destroyed and they both suffered injuries, the men are grateful.
“A lot of people have asked if it’s the scariest thing or the worst thing that’s happened to me, but honestly, the good has somehow outweighed the bad,” Roger says. “I’m alive and we’re all healthy, it could’ve been so much worse.”
Source: CNN