Woman talks about surviving Cass County tornado

Somewhere amid all the debris is Kim Lemire's home. It literally went mobile when Sunday's tornado ripped into Walton, just outside Logansport. Kim had just gotten home from work.

“I prayed harder than I've ever prayed in my life,” she says. “It started shaking like it was coming off the foundation.”

At that point, the tornado had been classified an EF1 with winds around 100 miles per hour. Kim had tried to call her father and was on the phone when the winds screamed into her home.


“While they were talking, she started screaming,” recalls Rhonda Beagan, Kim's Mother. “Then the phone went dead and then my husband started yelling, Kimberly, Kimberly!”

“I ran into the closet, and just as I stepped into the closet, it lifted my trailer up and flipped it and kept flying through the air and I was inside and everything was hitting me,” continues Kim.

When the force of momentum stopped, the trailer was some 30 feet from where it started. Miraculously, Kim climbed out and jumped into a ditch as the winds subsided.

“My body kinda went numb and I did what I knew I had to do and once I got to the neighbor's house, I could hardly stand.”

That's when she felt the pain in her legs from the broken glass, but otherwise, she was okay.

Through it all, Kim said her frantic feelings weren't only for herself, but for her 2-year-old daughter Alexis, who just happened to be miles away at her parents' home, because she had left work later than normal.

“I mostly prayed to keep my daughter safe and my family safe because I didn't want it to come over here.”

Kim wasn't able to salvage much of her belongings, but she was relieved to save her wedding rings and a photo of her husband who's a Marine serving in Afghanistan.