Part 3 of a 3-part series.

DAYTON, Ohio — When you see this North Dayton home, it looks like it was in an explosion.

“It sounded like a jet engine was over the top of us,” Beth Wentz said. "My kids were screaming. My son was saying, ‘We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die.”

Beth Wentz and her two children Hendrix and Storm were caught off guard when an EF-4 tornado blew through their neighborhood on Memorial Day 2019.

“It was the loudest noise ever,” Hendrix Walker said. “You could hear the dogs whining, you could hear the windows busting. I can’t explain. It was enormous.”

Their home absorbed the brunt force of the storm. Beth and the kids were downstairs in the basement of the house while everything was coming down around them. They say they’re very lucky to be alive.

Beth’s husband Timothy Walker was at work at the time of the storm. He feared the worst when he couldn’t reach his family.

“I got a text message from my sister-in-law and I’ll never forget what the text message said: 'Don’t panic, they’re okay, but the house is a total loss,'” Tim Walker said.

Tim left work immediately to check on his family. And when he arrived— “When I saw the house, my heart stopped,” he said. “The house was completely wiped out.”

Somehow, Beth and the kids survived through a tornado with winds estimated near 200 miles per hour. The house was lifted off the foundation and moved several feet.

“My whole family suffers through post-traumatic stress now,” Wentz said. “It was the most scariest thing I’ve ever been through in my entire life.”

Just to get an understanding of how fortunate they were to survive the storm, here is a look at the damage to the shopping center, just a stone’s throw from their home.

“It was like someone had stepped on it,” Tim said. “I mean it was literally crushed. It’s strange to call yourself lucky but we were lucky, we were very lucky. My wife and our two kids could’ve been killed. She’s still my hero. She kept all three of them safe. I thank God every day that she was able to do that.

But a terrifying night surviving the storm was just the start of their problems. They were uninsured, so they lost everything they owned in the storm. And with nowhere to go,  they stayed in a hotel for two months until they finally were able to rent a mobile home where they stayed for the remainder of the year.

They both say it’s been the toughest year of their lives by far. But through it all, they’re grateful for all the support they received while times were the toughest.

“Really, you know, I can’t stress enough without the help of our community and our friends and family and local churches and people who have donated to us, I don’t know what we would have done,” Tim said.

And now, the Walker family has found their new home— relocating to Springfield. And they’ve already started making it their own.

“It’s a good feeling knowing there’s a place we can go to that’s ours again, that we’re homeowners,” Tim said. “And a place where the kids can feel safe. And my wife can feel safe.”

Wentz said if there’s one thing they learned though surviving through a natural disaster it's this:  

“Be grateful for what you have, honestly,” Wentz said. “Because it can be taken away in a moment. Love your loved ones more and love them harder. Give them a big hug and a kiss and squeeze more often because you never know if tomorrow’s guaranteed. But most of all, I think in today’s times you tend to lose your hope in people a little bit. And in times like this, people come out of the woodworks, and it really restores your faith in humanity.”