Residents, loved ones recount chaos, injuries at tornado-ravaged Gaylord mobile home park
GAYLORD — A paralyzing injury, houses torn apart and then chaos as people climbed out from rubble — tales of terror in Gaylord poured out Sunday as loved ones and residents of the Nottingham Forest Mobile Home Park trickled back to their devastated community where two people were killed in a tornado Friday.
The EF-3 tornado, which ripped through with winds at 150 mph, left shredded houses and shattered glass where safe havens, resting places, and family bases once stood in the mobile home park, by the description of Joe and William Harding. The pair had stopped by the mobile home park Sunday afternoon when residents were allowed back in.
Their uncle is now paralyzed from the waist down, they said. It was his home they were visiting to pick up some items, as most of their family is with their uncle downstate at a hospital.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Joe Harding said.
Officials reported 44 people were hospitalized in wake of the storm. Michigan State Police Special Lt. Derrick Carroll said Sunday he could not release information on the injuries. The names of those killed had not yet been announced.
The Hardings' aunt had been at their grandparent’s home with one of their sons at the time the tornado blasted through and was OK, they added. And the family is receiving community support.
But their aunt and uncle's neighborhood has little left standing in it and their home is gone, Joe Harding said.
“My heart breaks for my aunt and uncle,” Joe Harding said. “Their kids grew up in that house. Like from being a baby until now. They grew up in the house and it’s just —to see everything gone is terrible.”
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Residents of the mobile home park waited in the parking lots of the damaged businesses along West Main Street on Sunday until Michigan State Police began allowing them to return to their properties about 1 p.m.
Standing with her aunt and cousins was 17-year-old Triniti Johnson, who said she took it upon herself to assist others while the tornado was still active.
Until this weekend’s disaster, Johnson worked as a sandwich maker at Jimmy John's. Her place of work, alongside Hobby Lobby and Goodwill, was damaged as the tornado ravaged the small city.
"I got off work to send my brother in North Carolina a birthday gift via Pak Mail,” Johnson said. “I got my alert at 3:55 p.m. and had already started walking back home when it started gushing down rain and I decided to turn back to Jimmy John's and ask my coworker for a ride.”
As soon as Johnson got back to her workplace, she found herself struggling to escape a collapsing roof with three other coworkers, two customers and her coworker's child, she said. She immediately called 911 for assistance.
“All we heard was wind — the roof collapsed. We were trying to get out the door and the delivery driver got in his car and a pole actually landed on his vehicle, but he is OK,” Johnson said. “When the roof started collapsing, we gathered everyone around and hid in one corner of the restaurant where our storage closet and backroom is.”
When Johnson and her coworkers escaped, they went to Culver's nearby for safety and found four other people trapped, she said. She recalled two of the four being slightly injured.
Johnson plans on returning Monday to Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she is originally from, she said.
She came to Michigan to work and was supposed to return in June but the tornado sped up her return home, she said. E-Free Church paid for her ticket.
Declan Clayton, 20, said he was at a nearby gas station when the tornado started making headway.
“I actually saw it start to form and that's when I called my brother who was still in the trailer at the time and told him ‘Hey, get your dogs ready, get you ready, I'm coming,’” Clayton said. “And before I could even make it, it had already touched down, ripped through the neighborhood and was already across the street.”
Once Clayton made it to his brother, he left his wife and stepsister waiting in the car as he climbed over “branches and rubble,” he said. “There were people crawling out from under the rubble, it was just chaos.”
The tornado shattered the windows in Clayton’s trailer and caused water damage throughout the house.
“We were one of like six trailers still standing and there was like 50 units back there,” he said.
Despite making a week’s worth of progress in one day, the cleanup continues, Gaylord City Manager Kim Awrey said Sunday.
“The cleanup was utterly amazing (Saturday), the turnout from the community was outstanding,” Awrey said. “We had lots of help from surrounding communities. What we cleaned up (Saturday) would have taken over a week. It is amazing how much we have been able to get done.”
Of those helping Sunday was Emily Motz, who lives by Otsego Lake. She said it only rained near her house, but when she heard of the devastation in Gaylord, she came out to assist in cleaning yards by moving sticks, logs, and debris.
“My dad's a firefighter and so he's been gone for the past two days and so I just wanted to come out here and do something to help people,” she said.
Also among the helpers has been E Free Church, which has become a hub for all resources, said lead pastor Scott Distler.
“We have the Red Cross doing a shelter here, the United Way is here, Health and Human Services,” Distler said. “This is the place that people bring donations, or come to pick up supplies they need or get the help they need. ... Anything we can do, this is really kind of the starting point is what this is. Let's connect, let's meet your immediate needs and then we'll see what else we can do.”
It's those attitudes, that sense of community that will help the community recover, said residents such as Kara Kent of Gaylord.
Kent was at work while her two children, 12 and 14 years of age, were at home alone during the tornado.
Thankfully her children were able to take safety in the basement, she said. Kent’s garage was destroyed along with all her tools, four-wheelers, and lawnmowers. Her grandmother’s home — which was empty, as her grandmother had already passed in November 2021 — was also destroyed.
“We’ll rebuild eventually,” Kent said. “It could have been a lot worse. That’s where we’re all at. Family bonds together, the community bonds together to make sure everything is taken care of, everyone is provided for, everyone has a place to stay, food to eat, water to drink and that’s all that we can do.”
Nour Rahal is a freelance journalist. She can be reached at nourrahal.media@outlook.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tornado left Gaylord mobile home park residents climbing from rubble
