BARNSDALL, Okla. — Amidst all the brokenness in Barnsdall remains a spirit of hope.
The Crowder family was desperate to find their cat Pikachu after a tornado shredded their home to pieces, so they spent hours calling her name.
Lindsay Crowder recalls the night their lives changed forever.
“The sirens went off the first time and so we went down to the shelter and then went off so we thought the threat was over and so we came back home, and we were watching the radar pretty closely and saw that it was coming straight for us and so we went back down to the shelter and I’m so glad that we did,” Crowder said.
“We didn’t have our pets with us, and I honestly thought we were going to come back, and our house was still going to be here.”
See more footage of the devastation in Barnsdall:
With their home destroyed, the family focused their efforts on finding their pets.
2 News was there as Lindsay began calling out to Pikachu, who was miraculously discovered underneath the rubble alive.
For a small moment in time, the sadness lifted as she came out and into Lindsay’s waiting arms.
“I’m so happy right now. This is just a house. We can’t replace her, and we can’t replace our kids," she said. "We can’t replace the people and things that mean so much.”
The family is working to rebuild:
This was my last option, but we lost our home and pretty much everything in it last night in the tornado that went through Barnsdall, and we are in desperate need of all things.
Our car was also severely damaged and is now not road legal so we truly have nothing.
Any help would be appreciated… We are just trying to get a camper or something so we have somewhere to live for the time being.
Thank you!
GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/e26470fc
The Humane Society of Tulsa is in Barnsdall to help out families like the Crowders with pet retrieval, housing, and food.
”Often, in these situations, cats will just stay, and they are terrified. There are bulldozers and there’s chainsaws and there is so many scary noises and so many people that they will just stay hunkered down underneath debris for an extended period of time,” Gina Gardner with the Humane Society of Tulsa said.
The organization has its climate-controlled sheltering trailer here near 6th and Main in Barnsdall. It has 64 kennels that can house animals that have been lost or displaced by the storms.
This precious family has lost so much, but they are grateful they can still hold on to the things that matter most.
If you would like to help the humane society, which desperately needs pet food, you can drop it off at its Tulsa location.
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