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Tornado victims describe scary moments when storm hit

Posted at 9:22 PM, Jan 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-01-24 05:14:37-05

There is still a long road ahead to fix what the tornado damaged or destroyed.

Luckily, Jon Hennemyre got his two kids out of their respective rooms just in time.

PHOTOS: Look at more pictures of storm damage

"We didn't know what was coming," his daughter says.

"Really good, because I would have maybe died," his son says.

Their rooms were the last stop for the tornado in their home.

With grandma and grandpa in town visiting, all six members of the family piled into the laundry room as it passed through in an instant.

"You felt it. You sensed it. You knew something was coming. You knew it wasn't good," Hennemyre said.

It broke into the house through the back windows.

"The curtains were sucked out."

It was one of the first things Hennemyre repaired on Monday.

"You get there and you can see the fear in their eyes," says Michael Verdeber, an installer for Glass Doctor. The waiting list for window replacements is already a few days long.

"With the stuff that went on there, with so many windows being broken it would take some time to get set up, being that we cut the glass on site," Verdeber says.

Hennemyre's roof sustained heavy damage. Nothing fixable in a day. Roofers like Frank Leo spent all day on calls. "It was probably triple or quadruple as many calls as we would normally get and I'm sure we'll probably get some tomorrow," Leo says.

In all, Hennemyre estimates around $60,000 in damage.

"The aftermath is more of the stressful part than anything else. It just happened so quick," Hennemyre said.

On Tuesday, his car damage will be assessed. The back window is broken, and a piece of debris is stuck in his bumper.