NEW ORLEANS — When Sha Hebert got tornado alerts on her phone Wednesday evening, she knew she didn’t have much time.
“The next thing I knew windows started blowing out. I screamed for him to get to the bathroom,” said Hebert, pointing to her son. “The dressers and everything were falling.”
Hebert, her son, mom, and stepfather were huddled together inside their home near Roseland as a possible tornado headed their way, ripping off part of the roof and shaking their sense of safety when it passed.
“All you could see was stuff flying,” said Hebert. “It picked it [the house] up. It picked up and just dropped.”
“When it picked the trailer up it was like all the oxygen just flew out,” said Hebert’s mother Vonda Granger. “You couldn’t breathe and then it just dropped all at once.”
Just as quickly as it started, Hebert said it was over.
“I was just thankful. Thankful to be alive. That’s all I could say was thank God my baby was OK,” said Hebert.
Outside, a wooden post through the windshield of their SUV, uprooted trees, and a distinct path of destruction etched into the wood line just yards away, made them even more thankful.
“I was just worried about my baby. That’s all I could say was God don’t let nothing happen to my baby. That’s all I could say,” said Hebert.
Hebert says she lost her home during Hurricane Ida and was staying with her parents. Now they’ll all have to find somewhere to go.
The family dog, “Baby,” survived but the family cat did not.
The family says they are extremely grateful for rescue crews that showed up very quickly to help.
“We were lucky to be alive,” said Granger.