Save by a text: Parents' lives saved with well-timed text amid Illinois tornado outbreak
LEWISTOWN, Ill. -- A son sent his parents a well-timed text message that may have ended up saving their lives.
On Tuesday, he told them to get into the basement of their Lewistown, Illinois home. Just minutes later, an EF-3 tornado ripped through the area, destroying their property.
RELATED: 22 tornadoes confirmed in Illinois over weekend
"I sent dad a text message that said, 'Hey, I think this is going to be pretty bad. You probably ought to be heading to the basement probably in the next 10 minutes or so,'" said Mike McCormick, who saved his parents with a text message.
It's a good thing he did because his father said about five minutes later, the storm was on top of their home. The storm destroyed their home and much more on their property, spreading it as far as the eye can see.
"Two pretty good size machine sheds on the other side of the road that are both completely gone. Their 5th-wheel camper was in one of them, and it's over here back behind us now. It just kind of rolled across the field," McCormick said.
McCormick's parents hid in the basement. Debris piled in the staircase and the cars in the garage almost blocked the entrance too.
"The car and the truck were in the garage. Both of them moved a little bit,' he said. "The car actually moved just barely into the house. So where the stairway access is to go to the basement, if it had gone another few feet, it would have pretty much been over that hole."
This isn't their first time experiencing a tornado. They've seen one before in 1995.
"It lifted the roof on the house and one of the garage walls fell out. It wasn't a big deal to put it back," McCormick recalled. "This one tore a lot more damage than the one before that was easily fixed. This one, I think, we're probably going to end up taking this thing off and either rebuilding here or doing something different."
Regardless of the damage, they are in good spirits and thankful for the community support.
"We've had a lot of people stopping by this morning to offer help and a lot of farmers offered their equipment and different things. Ya' know, that's what typically happens around here, everybody kind of comes together and you pool resources or whatever you need to do, and you eventually get past all this even though it's kind of a pain. You get by it," McCormick said.
More than 115 storms were reported on Tuesday, mostly in Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois.
