By Perrin Stein

Gillette News Record

Via Wyoming News Exchange

GILLETTE — After receiving an emergency weather alert on his phone Friday afternoon, Matt Mcquin looked out the window of his house and didn’t see anything.

Then came rain and hail followed by 10 seconds of calm. The wind came up fast, and the house swayed and started to lift. He and his fiancée, Jolinda, grabbed their kids and ran to the basement, calling to his mother to follow them.

As he reached the basement of their Oriva Hills home, debris started falling. The family gathered against the back wall of the basement while he and Jolinda protected the kids with their arms.

“The house was torn to shreds right in front of our eyes,” he said.

When the house stopped moving, rain poured in and Mcquin started screaming for his mother, who didn’t answer.

“I thought she was dead,” he said.

He called 911 and went to look for her, walking barefoot through what was left of his home. He eventually found his mother, who said she was having difficulty walking and was near a leaking propane tank.

“I told her to get out of the way of the tank in case something sparked it,” Matt Mcquin said. “Good thing I did, because when I went back to the house today (Saturday), I saw downed high-voltage wires near the house. If they had been live, we all could have died.”

His mother was taken to Campbell County Memorial Hospital, where she received two staples to her head. She was released Saturday and was the only person hospitalized after a tornado ripped through the subdivision about 8 miles northwest of Gillette, said Sheriff’s Cpl. Gary Spears. One other person reported minor injuries.

The Mcquins’ dog was upstairs in his kennel during the tornado. They found him afterward in the grass, covered in dirt and barely able to lift his head. Matt Mcquin said they wrapped him in a blanket and a neighbor drove them to a veterinarian, where the dog is recovering.

“It might seem ridiculous to some people that we went right to taking care of our dog, but he is a part of our family,” he said. “He even has the same birthday as me. We just love him a lot.”

Saturday, they returned to Oriva Hills and saw that the only area not covered in debris was the spot where they took refuge in the basement.

“We realized how lucky we were,” Matt Mcquin said.

The loss is particularly devastating for Mcquin because his father, who died two years ago, bought the property and because he and his mom had spent a lot of time fixing it up.

“The tornado took everything. We basically have nothing left,” he said.

Total destruction

Across Cloud Peak Road, Grant McClure looked out the window of his trailer at about 1 p.m. and saw rain and hail. Thinking it was a typical spring storm, he sat down to watch a movie.

Then, his trailer started bucking in the wind, the walls flexed and his furniture began moving. He was hit in the head, possibly by an air conditioner, and was ejected from his home. He landed in the grass a few feet from his trailer, which the wind had picked up, blown 50 feet and smashed down on its side.

McClure said he stood up from where the wind had deposited him, bleeding from his head and struggling to see without his glasses, which had flown off his face. He stumbled — disoriented — to his car. After finding a spare pair of glasses, he walked to his landlord’s house to call his parents, who drove from Sundance to check on him.

“I’m a little wind-blown,” McClure said as he searched through the remains of his trailer, which were strewn across a hill near Cloud Peak Road. “I have no words for what happened. I don’t know how to react.”

McClure’s home was one of seven destroyed by the tornado, Spears said. Seven other homes in the subdivision were damaged. Dozens of other buildings and vehicles were also affected, and there is not yet an estimate of the cost of the destruction.

Looking at his mangled furniture, debris from his trailer and his smashed trucks, McClure was at a loss for words.

“This is my whole life,” he said. “It was a home. It wasn’t just some camper. I never needed anything else.”

McClure, his parents and grandfather picked through his possessions Friday afternoon, searching for his phone and his tools so he could start rebuilding. His father even crawled under the demolished trailer to pick through the rubble. All he could savage was a cowboy hat, which McClure put on.

At one point, McClure said his father, also named Grant McClure, noticed his shirt had the word “lucky” printed across the front and laughed. “I guess he is lucky,” he said. “He’s still here.”

‘It is unexplainable’

Mary Clevenger and Nick Clevenger live next door to the woman who was hospitalized. When they heard about the storm, they left Gillette and headed to Oriva Hills to collect their dogs. They then waited it out on Echeta Road south of the subdivision.

When they returned at about 2:30 p.m., they saw a swath of destruction that grew as they neared their home. There were downed power lines, buildings with missing roofs, sheds tipped over and smashed windows.

Then, they saw their home, which appeared as if the tornado had missed it.

“When you are driving down the road and you see all your neighbors’ houses are gone and then you see that your house is untouched, it is unexplainable,” Nick Clevenger said.

They and their two kids then set to work treating scraped up horses, gathering leashes to wrangle their neighbor’s dogs and trying to keep her goats from eating the debris scattered across the property. Nick Clevenger left late Friday afternoon to pick up a trailer, so he could care for his neighbor’s horses until she could collect them.

“We came out here just out of kindness for those who lost everything,” Mary Clevenger said. “It could have been us, and we want to make sure that the animals are fine.”

After gathering up their neighbor’s animals, they planned to stay in a hotel for the night because although their house had survived, they had no power.

“I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day,” Nick Clevenger said.

The tornado traveled west to east, making its first Campbell County landing in Oriva Hills, where the Red Cross is providing assistance to those who need it. No displaced Oriva Hills residents needed overnight housing because they were all able to find places to stay, the agency reports.

Many people were at work or away for the weekend, which is likely why there were so few injuries, Spears said. Friends and neighbors called those who were out of town, letting them know what had happened. Some stationed themselves at destroyed homes until the owners could return or helped board windows and gather animals.

“How much people came together and pitched in for their neighbors shows how great of a community Oriva Hills is,” said Sharie Grubbs.

Her house was undamaged, but she spent Friday afternoon helping others.

Grubbs said she was in Gillette when she heard about the storm and jumped into her car, speeding home. She was among the first people in the area after the tornado ripped through. As clouds continued swirling overhead, she checked on her house, where a few items had been knocked over, including her grill and a small wooden building. When she went onto her porch, she could see some homes around her were demolished.

“It’s pretty devastating,” she said. “What happened to us is nothing compared to what happened to some of our neighbors.”

She then went to a neighbor’s house to assess damage there and take his chickens to her place. She knew he was on vacation, so she called him to break the news.

“How much people came together and pitched in for their neighbors shows how great of a community Oriva Hills is,” Grubbs said. “I know that a lot of people with damaged properties chose to help out others who had even more damaged properties. It’s incredible what people will do for each other, especially in a time like this.”

During Friday’s severe thunderstorm, funnel clouds were first seen forming and dissipating about three miles north of Interstate 90 near Force Road, said Melissa Smith with the National Weather Service in Rapid City, South Dakota.

A tornado dropped down just east of Echeta Road at 1:44 p.m. and stayed on the ground for 2.7 miles, traveling northeast before dissipating at 1:52 p.m., Smith said. It passed through the Oriva Hills subdivision for eight minutes, producing winds up to 136 mph.

Based on wind speeds and damage to the subdivision, the National Weather Service has classified the tornado as a category EF3, which is “pretty strong,” Smith said.