Year of the tornado

Town levelled by storm
It was Sunday, May 25. Dean Everet and his wife, Michelle, who'd been to church earlier that day, knew it was going to rain -- but that wasn't enough to dissuade this fertilizer sale man from golfing with his brother, or Michelle, a housekeeper, from taking their youngest son to visit her parents on the outskirts of town.

Dean Everet: The sun was even shining in the morning. Fairly clear sky, and a beautiful Sunday day.

Parkersburg, where Dean and Michelle both grew up, is a small blue-collar agricultural hamlet with a population of just under 2,000.

Michelle Everet: Our wedding day was a very special day.

And starting from that day, the high school sweethearts eventually saved enough to purchase their own home here.

Michelle Everet: The minute we walked in, we knew this would be our home. First time we looked at it, it was like, yeah, we want this.

Even better. The Everets knew that Parkersburg’s family-friendly atmosphere and high level sports programs made it a great place to raise two athletic sons.

In fact, as the weather worsened around Iowa on that fateful spring Sunday, oldest boy Kyle was 700 miles away in Oklahoma City, playing in a baseball tournament.

Kyle Everet: I talked to my dad that morning and he said that they're predicting bad weather for our area, which I didn't think much of it.

But by mid-afternoon, his father could no longer ignore it. With the rain beating down hard, Dean stopped golfing after the third hole.

Dean Everet: If it wouldn't have been lightning, we would have kept on playing.

From the window of her parents’ home, Michelle saw it first.

Michelle Everet: We could see like two tornadoes coming down and combining into one. It looked like a huge monster.

And indeed, says meteorologist Bill Karins, it was a monster.

Bill Karins: We knew there was a chance for supercell thunderstorms. I mean no one would've predicted an EF-5 train. We've only had two in the last decade. This was as strong as they get, winds over 200 miles an hour, which literally removed items from their foundations and tooks items out of basements and just sucked them up.

Michelle Everet: It looked like it was coming straight for us. And then just like that it turned. And my dad was right beside me and he said, "Oh my goodness, it's going to town -- it's going to take out the whole town."

Michelle, who was at her parents' home on the outskirts of town, wasn't in the tornado's path, but she worried that Dean was, and quickly got through to him.

Michelle Everet: And I said, "Dean take cover, it's coming."

With the afternoon sky to the north darkening and the wind starting to swirl, Dean -- who had not seen the storm coming -- got home not a moment too soon.

Dean Everet: I looked back to my neighbor's front yard and his big tree in the front yard was just swaying back and forth, north to south, and that's when I figured it was probably a good time to go to the basement.

Iowans well know that in the thick of a tornado, the basement is usually safest place to be. But this time Dean wasn't feeling very safe. While he didn't know that the approaching tornado was more than a mile wide and bellowing record winds, the deafening sound it was making was like nothing he'd ever heard before, and causing Dean to scurry for added cover.

Dean Everet: I crawled beneath the bunkbed. It was like like almost a "whoo-whoo-whoo" In my head it was almost like you take a shop vac and put a hose on each one of your ears and turn them on, it was just a vacuum like that. And I felt like everything in my head was going to be pulled out.

Then, suddenly the tornado Michelle had seen was there. Around 5 p.m., this brute force of nature swept into Parkersburg, ripping apart everything within its grasp. A security camera was rolling within the local bank's sturdy walls when the twister hit.

An ATM video camera showing a home a block down from the Everet's also captured its awesome power.

Dean made a frantic attempt to call his wife.

Dean Everet: I thought, you know, if I'm not coming out of here alive, I'm going to talk to my wife one more time.

Josh Mankiewicz, Dateline NBC: What were you going to say?

Dean Everet: I love you.

But that phone call never took place.

Dean Everet: I was shaken so bad. There's no way I could press the buttons on the phone.

Dean said it felt like 20 minutes in hell. In fact, the tornado lorded over him less than a minute. When finally it passed, the dumbfounded man walked upstairs to a bright sky -- and carnage. The Everet's house was virtually destroyed.

Dean Everet: I dropped to my knees and realized this just tore our community to pieces.

A few miles away, Dean's frantic wife had already jumped in the car to fight her way back into town, or what was left of it.

Michelle Everet: I was crying very hard. And our cell phones weren't working, so I couldn't get a hold of my husband again to make sure he was okay.

When Michelle finally got there, she leant her voice to a kind of collective wail.

Michelle Everet: We were all crying, everybody was crying.

But after spotting Dean amidst the rubble, the former high school sweethearts tearfully held each other for the longest time.

Michelle Everet: We hugged very tightly.

Rescue workers and news crews quickly swooped in, including a team from WHO, the NBC news affiliate from Des Moines.

Michelle Everet: There's the kitchen...

The Everets showed news anchor Sonya Heitshusen around what was their home.

Sonya Heitshusen: It makes you realize that as humans we really aren't in control of very much. Because this can happen to anybody.

In the coming days, the Everets would learn that six local residents, including Michelle’s aunt, had died in the tornado. Dozens more had been injured. Literally, within a span of a minute, more than 200 homes and businesses were destroyed, and 400 others severely damaged.

Kyle Everet: I was praying that mine was going to be there, but when I pulled down the street, and it wasn't.

Kyle Everet: (voice quivering) I’m just glad everyone was alright.

When the Everet's anguished son made it back from his baseball tournament in Oklahoma, he felt only relief when he set eyes on his parents and brother.

Kyle Everet: I said, "I love you guys. I love you guys." (Crying) I thought they were gone...

Michelle Everet: This is donated to us and these are my mom's shoes.

The Everets say they're going to be all right. Relying on the kindness of family and strangers alike, they, like so many others here, are determined to rebuild in Parkersburg.

Dean Everet: This is home. This is home. No matter what happened here, this is home.

One more thing: Dean and Michelle thought they had lost it all. But while scrounging through the endless debris, Michelle happened upon one thing that meant the world to her.

Michelle Everet: I go hey, here's my wedding dress, and it was just twisted in a tree… I'm very happy I found this, because this is a remembrance.

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