As the tornado tore through Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday, a four-month-old boy was sucked up from his family’s mobile home, leaving his parents in a desperate bid to find him. Sydney Moore, the boy’s mother, recounts the terrifying moment when the twister ripped off the roof of their home, lifting the bassinet that held her son inside. Her boyfriend, the child’s father, was also swept up, clinging to the bassinet as they were both lifted into the air.
“I was just holding on to the bassinet the whole time, and we went into circles, he said,” Moore recalled. “And then they got thrown.” The couple was powerless to stop the twister’s fury as they were tossed, helpless, in its path. As the roof of their home caved in, Moore abandoned her own safety to grab her one-year-old son in another room, shielding him from the torrent of wind. Together, they were buried under the collapsed trailer, but Moore managed to push them clear and emerge to search frantically for her missing son.
Clarksville Tornado AftermathThe storm raged on for 10 long minutes, during which Moore doubted her boy’s survival. “I was pretty sure he was dead and we weren’t going to find him,” she confessed, her voice laced with emotion. “But he’s here, and that’s by the grace of God.” A miraculous discovery awaited her and her family, who found the four-month-old child lying in a fallen tree, battered but alive.
The family’s home, along with all their belongings, lay in ruins, yet they had emerged relatively unscathed, with only cuts and bruises to show for their ordeal. A poignant GoFundMe page, set up by Moore’s sister, seeks to help them rebuild their shattered lives. Meanwhile, the region mourns the loss of three lives in Clarksville and three in Nashville, victims of the severe tornado-producing storms that tore through the state last Saturday.