WISCONSIN DELLS (WKOW) — The National Weather Service has not confirmed a tornado touched down in southern Adams County but one homeowner believes one tore through her yard Tuesday afternoon.
Ashley Smejkal spent Wednesday morning taking inventory of all the downed trees on her property and waiting for her lights to come back on.
After driving through the roads around her home, she believes she’s spotted a path of destruction that leads straight through her yard. She believes it’s remnants of a tornado.
“You couldn’t hear that the trees were falling because it sounded like a freight train. It sounded like growling and the rain was just whipping everywhere,” she said.
Home alone at the time, she said she realized she was in the worst of it when she saw the wind sent her one of her chickens flying.
“I thought that it was just one of those alerts that went off on your phone until I looked outside and there she goes,” she said.
That’s when said she took shelter.
“I was like this is how I die,” she said. “This is how I die. In a tornado, by myself, holding my dogs.”
Fortunately, she lived to tell the tale and so did that chicken.
“It was overwhelming,” she said.
Smejkal believes the worst damage was a tree that fell onto her barn, piercing the roof. Still, the rest of the barn was intact and so was her home.
That means the next step for her is a long cleanup.
“It’s just going to be cutting and dragging, cutting and dragging,” she said.
So she’s taking whatever help she can find.
“You’re gonna find out who your real friends are,” she said. “You’re gonna see who shows up with their chainsaws and their trucks and ready to haul away some of this lumber.”
by Michelle Alfini (2018, August 29) WKOW
