Trees were tossed around over the ground like toothpicks, cars were reduced to something resembling a rolled up ball of foil, and houses were nothing but shattered windows and splinters.

“The Sky was dark, and the winds were starting to pick up,” storm chaser Chandler Sullivan said as she watched the tornado come down on May, 20th 2013. “I thought ‘Wow, this is just amazing’, not realizing that it would be hitting a major area.

“I didn’t know what to do, I just followed,” said Sullivan as the tornado swelled in size. “[It was] the biggest wedge I had ever seen. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.”

The tornado proceeded to tear apart the town of Moore, destroying lives and property with it. The death toll was 23, and property damage was around 2 billion.

Several students rose up to help those in need.

“The wreckage was horrible,” said student Dustin Moss, who went on a trip with First Baptist to clean wreckage from around the area. “Everything people had was ripped and in a thousand different places.”

He saw cars flipped over like boxes and houses nothing more than splinters.
The group from First Baptist helped the families recover lost and destroyed items, from shoes and toys to walls and pieces of mangled cars, and returned them to the owners.

“Dust was covering everything, and it had just happened a few days before,” Moss said. “The tornado had covered everything, leaving nothing unharmed.”
Student Taylor Gray volunteered with a local youth group the day after Moore.

“There was mud caked on cars, and tree limbs glass, and dust was everywhere you walked.” Gray said. “I tore my bag on the splinters everywhere, but I didn’t care, I could fix this with tape. You couldn’t fix Moore with tape.

“I saw a car, it looked like it had been sitting there for about 10 years. It was covered with dirt, the paint was scraped off, and the windows were gone.” Gray said. “ I realized the car was 2013 model.”

Taylor’s group helped pass water to the families who had lost everything and tried to pick up the pieces of their houses that had been scattered everywhere.

“You would find one shoe next to the house, and another at the end of the street. Some things were found almost a mile away.”

Gray said one thing that stood out was how the survivors had to decide what to do next, and how to rebuild their lives (literally) from the ground up.

“I could almost cry.” Sullivan said, recalling the sight of destruction minutes after the twister had passed. “It changed me as a person.”