Audrey Souder’s mobile home was two rows back from the cul-de-sac in the Skyview Mobile Home Park when an EF-3 tornado touched down shortly before 10:30 p.m. in the community of El Reno, Oklahoma. In the moments before this storm tore her family’s lives apart, Audrey’s telephone rang. As she searched for it, the electricity went out and everything was suddenly black.
“By the time I decided to go get a flashlight, we started moving and so in that process, I knew something was wrong,” she said. “I was in trouble.”
“It didn’t matter where I was, so I got all the way to the floor and I rolled with it,” Audrey said, recalling the critical seconds before disaster struck.
Audrey’s family home eventually landed upside down, yards away from its original location. Recounting the moments after the structure came to rest, she can’t even remember which side of the torn-apart house she climbed out of and into the rubble. Bleeding profusely and unable to locate her son without her eyeglasses, a nearby neighbor lent a hand, finding her 10-year-old son, William, and taking him to a safe place while the search for other survivors continued.
“I was still screaming, because I knew I hadn’t heard my husband’s voice and I knew he’d be looking for us,” Audrey said. “My husband was trapped underneath the trailer and first responders dug him out.”
Four days after the storm, her husband remained in the intensive care unit at OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City, with a fractured sternum and a fractured c5 vertebrae. Her son walked away with nine stitches, and Audrey came out of the disaster with 24 stitches, five staples and bruises covering her entire body. However, what the Souder family also came away with was a renewed trust in their community and in those that have come forward to lend a hand in a very dark hour.
“It’s been an overwhelming support,” Audrey said. “Everybody is coming together and pitching in to help everybody else. The Red Cross just makes it easier for people to come and be alleviated. We walked away, and we’re alive, and we can tell a story.”
Over the last month, more than 500 tornados have been reported across the United States and the severe weather threat is not over as storms continue to plow through communities in multiple states. American Red Cross disaster responders continue to provide relief and comfort to residents across affected communities of all sizes as they begin to recover from these widespread disasters. In fact, the Red Cross has more than 265 workers helping people in hard-hit communities across Oklahoma alone.
Across the nation, one in every 200 Americans is a Red Cross volunteer. Volunteers strengthen communities, gain valuable experience and support others when they need it the most. If you’d like to become a Red Cross volunteer in your community, visit redcross.org/Oklahoma.
By Cari Dighton
Kansas and Oklahoma Regional Blog 