Eyes in the storm

Steve Thurmon figures his headboard saved his life. Candace Westbrook remembers crawling “like a snake” over and under branches to get out of her house.

Zach Swart thought the whole thing was a joke. Marilyn Whittle wanted to make sure she saved her woodburning tools. Marcus Eagland may never live in a place with trees again.

Like hundreds of other people who live along a path from southwest Ruston to just beyond La. 33, these are survivors of the F3 tornado that bore down on the city April 25.

Though the twister caused damage along its almost 7-mile tear across town, the worst residential damage occurred in the Cypress Springs subdivision, Westwood Hills, along the Barnett Springs Road and in areas immediately east of Ruston High School.

The fast-moving tornado started its Lincoln Parish trek at 1:47 a.m. April 25 about 2 miles southwest of Ruston. It stayed on the ground eight minutes.

“I just heard a big ‘boom,’ and the back wall of my bedroom blew out,” said Thurmon, who lives on Shelor Drive in the Westwood Hills neighborhood.

Thurmon was in bed when two 70-foot-tall trees crashed into his house.

“Then the ceiling started falling on me,” he said.

In the dark, he pushed away boards and shards of glass, managing to roll out of bed and crawl through the hole that was once the wall.

“What saved me was my headboard was twoand-a-half feet above the bed,” Thurmon said.

Just over a mile away on Homer Street, Swart and several friends heard the severe weather siren but weren’t overly concerned.

“We were actually just joking around about it: ‘Oh no, another tornado siren. It’s going to come down and get us,’” he said. “And then, it actually did.”

The others rushed for the bathroom, but Swart had to stop to find his cat, much to the dismay of his friends. The tornado blew by in a matter of minutes.

“Once we were sure everything was done with, we just came out and we couldn’t see anything, until the lightning hit and we saw the damage,” he said. “It was just like a fever dream. We had no idea it would hit (our neighborhood) that bad.”

By 7 a.m., volunteers were on the streets throughout the hardest hit areas helping residents dig out.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people came from nowhere to clean this up,” Faulkner said, making a wide gesture attallpilesof limbsand tree trunks lining both sides of the road near his home on Shelor Drive.

Westbrook lives on University Boulevard. Like others, she was asleep when the storm approached.

“I heard a lot of wind, and I got up and ran to the center of my house,” she said.

Two trees landed on the house, blocking the door. Westbrook got out with help from a neighbor.

“I had to slide and crawl along like a snake,” she said.

Westbrook said she’s been in tornadowarned areas before, “but never over my house where I live. It’s kind of surreal.”

Abigail Simmons lives on Florida Avenue. She got home roughly 20 minutes before the tornado hit.

“We thought it may be another false alarm,” she said. “The siren kind of cries wolf. We weren’t taking it too seriously. Next thing you know, we start hearing the hail. And then it started.”

Some survivors described the sound of the storm outside their house as a giant vacuum cleaner.

“For me, it sounded like you were in a vacuum suction without being sucked up,” Simmons said. “It feels like everything around you is being sucked in. My ears started popping, and my house started shaking a little.

“It lasted just a minute, a minute and a half, and then it was done. Everything was silent.”

After the twister had moved on, some of those affected, such as Marcus Eagland, began thinking about their options in the near future.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” Eagland said. “Find another place to stay. I’m staying away from places with a lot of trees from now on.”

Others, like Tyler Storms, focused on what had been spared.

“After the terror, we truly experienced the joy from the Lord of being alive and having your loved ones not injured,” he said.

Storms said the outpouring of community support has deeply touched him.

“I have truly experienced the love of Jesus Christ on so many levels from so many people,” he said.

Many affected residents said they already plan to rebuild. Faulkner sees a silver lining for the future of his Westwood Hills neighborhood.

“At the end of the day, I think this whole thing is going to open a rejuvenation of this area,” Faulkner said.

But it may take months, if not years, for the city to fully recover. The tornado has literally changed Ruston’s landscape.

“I see things like the Huddle House and Parish Press, which used to be Crescent City Coffee, and it’s a lot of nostalgia coming back,” said Simmons, a lifelong Ruston resident. “It’s kind of sad, because this isn’t just my college town. This is home. And it’s heartbreaking to see my community hurt.”