By Katie Kindelan | ABC News Blogs | 11/18/13
As Kris Lancaster stood outside his home in Washington, Ill., Sunday, watching the destruction tornadoes and severe storms had wreaked on his town, he never thought his own life would be in danger in just seconds.
“I was feeling devastated watching it tear up the neighborhood as it came to me and I actually thought it was going to curve and at the last second it didn’t curve,” Lancaster said today on ” Good Morning America.” “I took off running, trying to get in and watched my whole house just vanish around me as it was flying by me as I’m trying to get to the steps.”
Lancaster, a sound engineer, had been filming the tornadoes’ destruction while his wife, Mandy, huddled in the basement with the couple’s three children – ages 4, 14, and 19 – their 5-month-old godchild and two 14-year-old nieces.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” Mandy Lancaster said. “I couldn’t hear or see anything. We lost our power and everything. It was scary.”
Up above, her husband was getting hit by flying debris.
“The refrigerator backed me into the other room, and finally, I jumped to the stairs,” Lancaster said. “I don’t know how I did it but I got to the stairs and fell down them and my 19-year-old son pulled me down and pulled me into the safety, into the backroom in the basement.”
After the storm passed Lancaster was taken by ambulance to a local hospital where he was treated for injuries from the debris, including a piece that hit him in the eye.
“I’m a little sore. I’m a little beat up,” Lancaster said. “[I’m] still in shock of all this happening. I really don’t know where to go from here.”
The Lancasters’ home was demolished, leaving them homeless and relying on the help of a local church for food.
. . . . . . . . . .
“We’re going to try and rebuild,” Kurt Lancaster said. “Try and get our same spot on our same property and try and rebuild and carry on with our lives.”
Lancaster had planned to hold a Thanksgiving concert next Wednesday with other bands but all of his music equipment and sound gear were lost in the storm. He said he hopes to hold the concert anyway in a few weeks as a benefit, and has offered his Facebook page as a destination for people who want to help families like his who lost everything Sunday.
“Thanks for everybody out there giving us support of the area and support of the neighborhood and the town,” he said. “We need it. We need anything that anybody can send this way. We need all the help we can get in this town.”
ABC News Radio and Anthony Castellano contributed to this report. Read the whole article here:
http://gma.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/illinois-tornado-survivor-really-don’t-know-where-154132062–abc-news-topstories.html?vp=1