Families at each end of the Sherwood tornado track tell similar stories
SHERWOOD TWP. — "Everything was terrifying. I have never been so scared in my life," Jason Kohn said as he looked over his tornado-damaged Ralston Road home Wednesday morning.
The 49-year-old Kohn stood in the road as he received a tornado warning on his phone.
The tornado was in Centreville. As he looked at the phone, "I realized that it was coming right for us."
Kohn did not believe the tornado would hit his home next to Dane Lake. "That's just not something to think about here, especially in Michigan," he said.
Kohn looked up from his phone and saw heavier and heavier wind coming toward him.
Then, he said, the wind came from behind him, pushing him down his driveway from the road.
Kohn realized he was in the middle of a tornado. "They tell you that it goes dead still. There's a lot of truth to that because it does."
Kohn ran for the basement of his home, where his wife Sherry had taken cover.
"I looked out the lower doors of the basement. My garage was in the air coming towards the house. All the trees were in the air. We hit the deck and started praying," Kohn said.
Kohn called his mother on the phone as the tornado struck. She was crying. He started crying as he recalled what seemed like a five-minute ordeal, but he said it was less than a minute.
Kohn and his wife saw daylight as the roof and walls in the back disappeared.
His 200-foot pole barn across Ralston Road is gone. Few pieces remain among the debris in his field.
His camper blew 150 yards along the road. The 200 to 300 trees behind his home are just sticks with branches and leaves scattered for miles.
Kohn said everything he owned was devastated.
His home will be repaired. "Everything's replaceable. We are of a different mindset. We will rebuild. We're not going anywhere," Kohn said.
"I've been through some things in my life, but there's nothing compared to this," he added.
As friends and neighbors helped clean up, Kohn reflected, "We survived. We're healthy. I'm just thankful that we're okay."
On Dunks Road, Frances Godfrey and her husband Tim admitted they were terrified as the tornado blew over their home several miles to the northeast, about 6 p.m. Tuesday evening.
Frances said they were both outside, watching the clouds move in one direction. When other clouds started rolling the other way, Tim "realized that it was time to get in the basement."
After what seemed like five minutes, the freight train sound subsided. They waited 10 minutes to come out to see the damage.
The roof of a 40-by-60 foot barn sat on the ground, but the rest was mostly gone.
The 100-year-old, 40-foot-high two-story barn was destroyed, but mostly the foundation remained.
Their ranch home had some minor roof damage but nothing serious. A tree fell across their propane tank.
A tree kept them from getting out of the drive until a neighbor came to push it aside.
Neighboring farmers with tractors and skid steers cleared Dunk's Road Tuesday night.
The roof and metal siding of a neighbor's barn caught in Godfrey's trees along Dunks Road.
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The couple consider themselves lucky. "Some people's houses they can't live in them. We're here. We're safe. We have a generator, so we're good," Frances Godfrey said.
— Contact Don Reid: dReid@Gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Coldwater Daily Reporter: Families at each end of the Sherwood tornado track tell similar stories
