The National Weather Service says an F1 tornado with estimated winds up to 110 miles per hour touched down near Wapakoneta, in west central Ohio early Saturday morning. Jeff Purvis of Loveland was camping at the nearby Arrowhead Lake campsite with his family when the tornado hit. He told his story to WYSO's Mike Frazier.
Jeff Purvis: It was around midnight that my brother in law's weather radio went off and announced a tornado warning. So, I opened up the camper and listened outside and that's when I could hear actual tornado sirens in the distance. I looked back at my family and said, 'Hey, let's get over to the clubhouse.' All this took place inside of 10 minutes. My wife said that she actually could feel the air pressure suddenly drop. At that point, power went out. My wife could actually see the ceiling tiles right above us in the hallway start to kind of like ripple.
Everybody started screaming. It lasted about 30 seconds, maybe. Went outside right next to the building — there were at least three campers had been completely flipped over. The roof of the building where we had taken shelter had been completely torn off. One gentleman had gotten trapped in his camper, so we helped kind of pull him through a skylight. It had been completely flipped over. Another group was yelling for people to bring tools because other people had gotten trapped in their campers. The camper we had been sitting in only 10 minutes before. Had been completely flipped and torn in half.
Mike Frazier: There were people still in their campers when the tornado hit.
Purvis: Yeah, one family of four were still in their cabin and their cabin got flipped upside down.
Frazier: The cabin itself got flipped over?
Purvis: Yep. Because at first, I thought I couldn't possibly have heard that right when someone said it. But when we went back the next day, yeah, you could see an entire cabin had gotten flipped upside down.
Frazier: Did you help folks who may have been hurt after the tornado struck?
Purvis: The lady who had been in the campsite next to us, her camper completely destroyed. I had gone out with my dog, Cooper. She just looked at Cooper and looked at me and said, 'I am so sorry, but I just really need some comfort right now. Can I...?,' She motioned to my dog. I said, 'Absolutely.' I dropped his leash. He went right over to her, started licking her face, sat down, let her pet him for a while. So, the only thing I guess I indirectly did to help folks in that respect was my dog managed to give at least that one woman comfort that she needed at the time.
Frazier: If you didn't have a weather radio with you, that conceivably you could have still been inside that camper that ended up flipped over?
Purvis: Yeah, very easily. We were taken to a hotel afterwards because obviously we couldn't go back to our campers. I tried to sleep for like 3 hours. I'd been up for over 24 at that point. But that was the thought that kept waking me up was how close.
Frazier: When you were in the clubhouse, what exactly did you do to protect yourself?
Purvis: So, when we got there, we just kind of identified an interior hallway, no windows, or at least, you know, the windows were decent distance away, and we knew we were between the two bathrooms and shower rooms. So, it was the most stable point, basically.
I'd say probably my biggest takeaway from the experience is remain as calm as possible. I think that's what really helped us out the most. The other little nugget of knowledge or nugget of wisdom that I would pass along would be for people who are going camping, basically be prepared for emergencies, know where the nearest shelter would be in the major storms, know where the nearest bathrooms are, you know, that sort of thing that you can take shelter. That is the one thing I know we will definitely be doing the next time we go camping is just making sure as soon as we pull in the okay, how far are we from the closest shower house or something like that that we can take shelter in if something happens.
