Man recalls experience inside Menards when tornado hit
THREE RIVERS, Mich. -- In the wake of Friday's tornado, Menards in Three Rivers sustained damage.
ABC57’s Jordan Tolbert spoke Levi Stokes, from Sturgis, who was inside the store with his grandma when the tornado hit.
Both Stokes and his grandma are ok, though her car was damaged.
They went to Menards in Three Rivers to get electrical supplies. Stokes said he noticed the sky was a little bit dark and got an alert on his phone when he got to the store.
"It said tornado warning, and it was beeping off. And then I noticed that there were a couple people beside us, and theirs was going off," said Stokes.
Stokes recalls shopping for the items they needed when the alarms went off inside the store.
He says he could see the dark cloud coming from inside through the clear doors.
"I seen the dark cloud get closer and closer. And then it actually came in the door, ripped the doors off, and then a ton of debris. I'm talking just everything you can think of, just flying through the air over there," said Stokes.
He says he and his grandma didn't make it to the shelter area right away. Stokes says they stayed in an aisle.
He said he was shielding his grandma from flying objects. An employee found them and tried to get them to a safer place.
"We're, you know, going that way. And then the front area, some more of the roof rips off and, you know, I looked behind at my grandma, and the back-end's ripping open. Stuff's just tumbling everywhere. Stuff's flying right behind my grandma, and then in front of us, we're dodging stuff in front of us," said Stokes.
He says when they finally got to the shelter area, it was already over.
Stokes says when they finally went outside the store, everybody was checking on each other, saying about 20 people came up to them to see if they were ok.
Levi said that the employees at Menards were helping guide people and checking on them during and after.
"I mean, going forward, if there's a warning, especially if you get a warning on your phone, you better just take shelter, because you don't know. You really don't know. I mean, I've lived my whole life. I'm 35, and I've had a couple of these warnings, right? Didn't think nothing of it, but the time that it really mattered, it could have killed us. So definitely take shelter if you get those warnings. Don't, don't even play with it," said Stokes.