MAYFIELD, Ky. — Bobbie Cruse is a new Mayfield resident who moved into her new home just two weeks before the tornado destroyed it.
Her new home has been condemned as a result of the EF-4 tornado but her old home in Paducah didn’t sell so she’s been displaced to it after the tornado.
On Dec. 10, Cruse was inside her new Mayfield home with her boyfriend. Immediately after hearing what sounded like a freight train she reacted quickly by getting into her hallway closet.
“I just took off running and screaming tornado. He just climbed on top of me and when that went over we thought we were gone. He just said, 'I love you' and I was screaming you know,” said Cruse.
Cruse and her boyfriend rode out the storm in a tiny closet that was stuffed with clothes for protection. Cruse says she could feel the pressure around the closet, the feeling of not being secure. Glass started breaking just outside of the closet she was hiding in with her boyfriend, her home even shifted inches off its foundation.
“You could feel it, it felt like the house was going to go, it didn’t feel like it was going to stay like it did. I didn’t think we’d make it if it collapsed,” said Cruse.
Cruse never thought she’d hear the sounds of her home buckling by the seams or wood punctured her roof. She hadn’t even unpacked most of her stuff, she was just getting around to it when the storm hit her neighborhood.
“I just feel lucky, when you go through something like that stuff doesn’t matter and it can all be replaced and especially when I drive down my road and see all of the destruction down there. I know my house is totaled but at least it protected us, it did its job,” said Cruse.
Cruse was left with only one option after the tornado and that’s was to try to save belongings and move back to her old home in Paducah, Kentucky.
“It’s like every place I turn I’ve been able to work something out, I feel so lucky I’ve been able to do that. It’s really a miracle and I don’t think there’s that many of them going around,” said Cruse.
It’s a miracle many in Mayfield, across Kentucky can’t relate to, but one Cruse is thankful for.