By Linda Waggener

A tornado was not needed to blow out the candles on Natalie Ann Curry's ballerina birthday cake March 28, but one came anyway.

Her guests had arrived and her fifth birthday party was just beginning with pin the tail on the donkey. The event was to progress from there to breaking a pinnate filled with goodies hanging in the garage, to cake cutting and the opening of presents.

Natalie was surrounded by family and friends who love her - mom and dad, Tammy and Mark Curry; grandparents Eddie and Ruth Hutchison, and Robbie and Robert Bell, Chad Bell, Mike, Alice and Kyle Curry, Hillary Hutchison, Tiffany Stephens, Nina Pendleton, Ruby English, Kenneth Pendleton, Bobby and Sandy Pendleton, and Randy and Taylor Hutchison.

Better Safe than Sorry

Forecasters were predicting foul weather and Adair Countians were paying attention because of past experiences with tornadoes.

A warning was announced for Green County about the same time the lights began to flicker over the party. Tammy located candles and flashlights. Grandma Robbie announced it was time to take the party to the basement. Alice agreed, saying it was better to be safe than sorry.

All the party goers trooped to the basement except for Eddie, Mike and Kenneth who remained upstairs to watch the sky. They wouldn't say what motivated them to give up and join everyone else in the basement, but moments after they did, the tornado descended right above the group's heads, biting off about half of the Curry's nearly-new home. The three later told of the funnel they'd seen coming straight for the house.

Tammy said their basement was finished and they'd been able to find seating for everyone.

"It was really dark," she recalled, "we all sort of huddled together around what light we had."

It sounded like...

"A ro-o-o-a-r-rr," Natalie drew the word out softly, awe in her voice, as she recalled the fierce sound. Her green eyes widened and her little hands stretched out, "we heard a big ro-o-o-a-r."

Tammy agreed with her daughter's description, "And there was a lot of popping and cracking with it - I kept hoping it was just really loud hail."

When it had been quiet long enough that they felt safe moving back upstairs, Mark first tried the door to the upstairs interior. It was blocked. Tammy remembered him turning to her and saying, "It doesn't look good." Thankfully their basement had an alternative exit up into the garage. The group was able to get out safely that way.

After the tornado

They regrouped across the road at Greg and Angie Smith's home which had not been damaged. They would call that home base for a few hours but none of them were to get any rest. Even in the darkness, they could begin to assess the damage,

"There were so many cars out - there was a lot of light from that," Tammy says, "People immediately began coming to help, bringing trucks and food and giving their time to help pick up the mess."

The tornado had left the Curry home in ruins - the roof half gone, walls caved in or missing, bedrooms destroyed - but they would discover one spot in the kitchen which had been left alone. Natalie's ballerina cake sat completely in tact right where it had been before the storm. The cruel winds had merely added a layer of insulation to the icing so that only the ballerina decorations could be saved.

When everyone who'd left the party was heard from hours later, Robbie and Robert Bell's home had also been in the line of the tornado. They'd lost their roof, most of their windows, and vehicles.

Looking at rescued photos

A couple of weeks after the storm - moved into a rental house while builders put the Curry house back together again - Natalie sat by her mom looking at photos they had rescued. Mark, a self-employed plumber, was out on a call. Tammy brushed at insulation which had actually been blown between a photo and it's plastic sleeve and recalled that insulation was blown into every drawer and crevice, and had seemed to cover every surface.

"And the tornado messed up our favorite place to eat," Natalie said of the flattened Bait Shop where they'd served, in her words, "the goodest ham and cheese sandwiches in the world." Happily for her and the neighborhood, the Bait Shop is now back together.

Natalie pointed to a certain picture in the photo album and asked, "Mom, this bike, is it gone too?"

"No, only the Barbie Jeep and swing set didn't make it," Tammy reassured her little girl with a hug, "Even the birthday presents were found - soggy and scattered - but every one of them was located during the clean up ." Tammy said her family felt very lucky. Unlike many victims, they were able to save some of their clothes, pictures and a few items to help them keep going with only a few work days missed. And she will never forget the help they were given by so many good hearted people.

The kids seem to be handling the event well. Checking around with the other moms to see if any trauma shock remained, she found that there had been no nightmares. Three year old Taylor now speaks authoritatively about the "tor-may-da" when the subject comes up.

Everyone who witnessed the event and the aftermath may wonder if angels weren't standing guard that night. Over eighty homes were damaged in the path cut through Adair county, including the Curry's with their party in progress, and not one individual was lost.