The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 2

The Cincinnati Enquirer A2 Saturday. April 10, 1999 WEMOK Call US: Tell us how Friday's tornado affected you. The Enquirerwants to hear about what the storm did to your community. Who did you help? Who helped you? Who are the local heroes? Telephone, fax or e-mail us by 1 p.m. today and we will share some of your experiences with our readers.

Please include your name, neighborhood and a telephone number where you can be reached today. Telephone: 381 -2800, ext. 701 0 Fax: 768-8340 or 768-801 1 E-mail: readersenquirer.com Path of Destruction The 'lucky celebrity' Driver got upside-down Donald Busch Jr. of Blanchester talks to a highway worker after a tornado picked up his truck on Interstate 71 on Friday morning. Mr.

Busch was driving south when his truck landed upside down on the concrete median. The Cincinnati Enquirer Craig Ruttle trip on freeway median "I'm definitely feeling strapped in by his seat belt. rain was picking up. you couldn't see anything. It was like driving in a cloud." The 35-year-old Blanchester man braked his red Ford pickup as debris started pelting the windshield.

"It was like the truck took control of itself," he said. His seat belt still fastened, he leaned into the passenger seat. "I knew something was going to happen, but I didn't know what." Next thing Mr. Busch knew, he was hanging upside down, lucky," he said. "I never even heard it coming." He watched from the median, awestruck, as other cars zipped by him, not even slowing down for the street signs, metal roofing and pieces of trees that littered the interstate.

He sat there for half an hour before he saw the other car. The one stuck in the trees upside down across the northbound lanes. The driver of that car lay motionless near the guardrail. But nearby, another dies BY LUCY MAY The Cincinnati Enquirer Donald Busch Jr. was southbound on 1-71, just 15 minutes from starting his 5:30 a.m.

shift as a toolmaker at Ilsco Corp. in Madisonville, when it hit. "I saw a couple of bright flashes," he said. "Two big balls of blue. I guess they were transformers blowing out.

The That's when he got scared. Mr. Busch thought his truck was upside down in the middle of the highway and that he would be hit by an oncoming car any minute. "Life was hanging on that seat belt to me." It took several minutes to push against the steering wheel enough to unhook his seat belt. Mr.

Busch climbed out and realized his truck was sitting upside down on a concrete barrier in the median. and two scratches on his left elbow. His back and neck are sore. Still, Mr. Busch feels lucky.

"Look girls, I'm on the news," he said to his family as the noon news came on television Friday. "I'm the celebrity today. The lucky celebrity." couldn't believe he survived. "It'll sure make you appreciate life a little bit better when you go through something like that." Glass became stuck in his head when the storm blew out the windows in his truck. He has a scratch on his right wrist The storm, Mr.

Busch suspects, "shot him across the road like a bullet. "I got a lump in my throat when I saw him sitting there." Later, he used a phone inside an ambulance to call his wife. She saw the truck before she saw him and told him she The scene Photographer encounters death and devastation on 1-71 storm. "Next thing he knew, he was in the truck, dangling upside down, strapped in by his seat belt," Mr. Ruttle said.

"He was stunned by the whole thing, but alive. "He said something like, 'I was lucky. That other guy wasn't quite so Mr. Ruttle looked across the interstate's northbound lanes. "Traffic was still moving," Mr.

Ruttle said. "There were highway department people looking around." Mr. Ruttle crossed the interstate and came across the body of Charles S. Smith, 40, of Loveland, who had been ejected from his car. The thought struck him, "That man had just been killed." He could see no sign of life.

The man's car was a few hundred feet away, thrown into the brush near the highway. He had what appeared to be a severe head injury. Someone covered his body. When the life squad got there a few minutes later, they checked for life signs. Their attempts to help were futile.

They covered his body again. "No matter how many times you've seen something like this, you still are shocked by the ferocity and how quickly these things take place," Mr. Ruttle said. "It's just minutes from total normalcy to total chaos. The damage didn't really become clear to me until the light came Pickup lifted, turned over BY LUCY MAY The Cincinnati Enquirer Cincinnati Enquirer photographer Craig Ruttle headed out toward Blue Ash about 5:30 a.m.

to try to get photographs of the storm's devastation. Along the way, he found it was far worse than he could have imagined from the thunder he heard at his Wyoming home. He was entering northbound 1-71 from the Pfeiffer Road entrance ramp when he saw it: "To my astonishment, there's a pickup truck upside down on the concrete barrier (near the median). It was not even on the ground but up on the barrier suspended. "I thought, 'Oh my I pulled over.

I came up to the truck. There was nobody around." Mr. Ruttle leaned down to look inside for the driver. In the dark, he couldn't see anyone inside the truck. "When I looked up, I saw the silhouette of a person sitting on the barrier." It was Donald Busch Jr.

of Blanchester. Mr. Busch told Mr. Ruttle that he was driving southbound in the storm when he saw blue flashes that he later figured were transformer explosions. Before he knew what was happening, debris started hitting Mr.

Busch's windshield and his truck was lifted by the 1 3 S1 MB'Mjllbq 'rmnMsBMfHMlSBB The Cincinnati EnquirenCraig Ruttle up. A twister devastated a house and woods in the MontgomeryBlue Ash area Friday morning. To the west In Addyston and Ripley County, some feel blessed just to be alive ed as the wind and rain demol afternoon with food and prom Sheets said. "At first I thought it was just the porch, but it's a yyat. Mb "1 "The structure can be replaced.

It hurts to feel that you've lost everything you own but everyone got out," he said, looking around. "God can do destruction. But he can do salvation as well, in saving these lives." In rural Ripley County, families whose homes and livelihoods were damaged drew strength from helping hands. A tornado ripped an estimated 8-mile path of destruction through homes, crops and trees from the Jefferson Proving Ground to Dillsboro, just over the Dearborn County line. Terry and Maureen Sheets were startled awake at 4 a.m.

EST by the death knell of their 305 Main Addyston, was blown to bits as she and her family slept inside. Her husband, Anthony Hawkins, dug their 15-year-old daughter Brandeix Hawkins out from under a section of shingles and pink aluminum siding. Their son Johnny Strong, 19, emerged from his basement bedroom unscathed. 'Everyone got ouf They surveyed the wreckage of their material lives, scattered in a wide circle around the foundation and a single standing wall of their home, hugged and called Pastor Bruce Burns of Phillips Chapel CME. He was on the scene by 5 a.m.

BY RACHEL MELCER The Cincinnati Enquirer As the walls of their homes and barns crashed in around them, giving way under the raging force of an early Friday tornado, families from western Hamilton County to Ripley County, found they could lean on their faith. There were no reported serious injuries or deaths west of Cincinnati Friday afternoon, and emergency management officials were convinced everyone had escaped with their lives. "I just thank God because if it wasn't for Him, we wouldn't have walked out of here," said Peggy Hawkins, whose home at ises of a chili dinner at one of the only homes with electricity. Helping each other Scores gathered at Benham United Methodist Church, where an emergency shelter opened just after 4 a.m. EST.

People from miles around fetched trays of food and pots of coffee. They drove from house to house, following the tornado's path, to round up refugees. "That's pretty normal around here," said Pastor John Adams. "People help each other out." Donetta and Jim Benham, who share their last name with their community, were unharm ished three 100-year-old barns and four 25-year-old grain bins at their farm. "You can hold your breath longer than it took to do this," Mr.

Benham said. "Some things my father built are gone and he passed away so they meant a lot." But as car after car pulled up and neighbors offered to help, his anger melted. Although he is a tornado spotter, he had no chance to see the twister roar directly overhead. "I know it sounds terrible, but if I had to put up with it, I'd like to have seen it," Mr. Benham said.

"It's got some beauty and grace to it." total loss. As the tornado passed in a flash, the couple's thoughts turned to the Welsh Corgi dogs, miniature cattle and halflinger horses they breed. Mr. Sheets looked through a window and, as lightning flashed, he could see the wreckage of their barns. Two horses, one of them pregnant, may have to be put down.

Mrs. Sheets cried for joy and hugged one of the dogs, Finnegan, when she found him under a collapsed garage wall but sobbed with the knowledge that another remained lost. Neighbors stopped by Friday The Cincinnati Enquirer Ernest Coleman In Addyston, the clock on Main Street shows the time the electricity went out. 15-month-old house. "We could hear all kinds of crumbling and creaking and cracking and groaning," Mr.

Coping with the STORM hen Bruce McNutt heard Ill the sirens at 4:30 a.m. Friday, he checked the Mf- 7 On Cornell Road, Julia Fleisch was getting ready for work about 5 a.m. and heard the "locomotive" sound roll through the neighborhood. Fearing glass could start flying, she grabbed the dog and her husband and headed for the basement. "We heard things hitting against the house," Mrs.

Fleisch said via telephone from her Cornell Road home. "It sounded like a bowling ball hitting the roof." When the couple and their dog emerged from the basement, they heard warning sirens followed by police and fire sirens. When they got outside early Friday and surveyed the damage: "No windows were broken, but there were some tree limbs on the back of the house. 'The hood of Mrs. Fleisch's car had a big dent and the grille was torn off.

"I found it about 50 feet from where the car was parked," she said. "It looked like a tree limb did it." She saw a trench in the back yard. At the end of it: A 4-inch-by-4-inch bedpost was stuck in the ground unscathed. The rest of the bed wasn't anywhere in sight. "We are very fortunate," said Mrs.

Fleisch, who was getting phone calls Friday from people she hadn't heard from in years. "How this passed over us. I don't know." Greg Watson went to work Friday the same way as always, driving along streets that wind through the suburban neighborhoods north of Cincinnati. Less than an hour later, on his way back through the same neighborhoods. Mr.

Watson could barely recognize them. "Houses were ripped apart. Telephone poles were down. Trees were broken in half," said Mr. Watson, a zone manager for The Enquirer's circulation department.

"People were wandering around aimlessly," he said. "They were in shock, I guess." He and several co-workers made their way to Cornell Road in Montgomery. As they walked past several overturned cars, one of them heard a woman cry for help. They found her half-buried in rubble, covered in blood and missing a leg. "She was in bad shape, really banged up." While he searched for victims, his friend stayed with the woman until paramedics arrived to take her to the hospital.

Rescue worker Bets Locke's most useful tool Friday was in the kitchen. "God bless microwaves!" the energetic Blue Ash woman said with a smile. Ms. Locke of Blue Ash's recreation department and four others, including Linda Fricke, right, arrived at Blue Ash Golf Course's Sandtrap Restaurant before 7 a.m. to make meals for rescue workers and tornado victims.

They plowed through all the meat in the restaurant's freezer, keeping the kitchen's microwave steadily humming as they thawed chicken, turkey, roast beef and other items. Breakfast, done. Lunches 400 and counting. We're already thinking about dinner." said Ms. Locke.

"We're using everything available here, and we're praying a lot" news, saw the warning, got his wife and went to the basement. They watched the television and got a play-by-play account of what was happening outside of his Meadow Bluff Court home in Symmes Township. "They said we were going to have hail. It started hailing. Then they said we would hear a freight train sound and we heard it," Mr.

McNutt said. "I don't know why we have a house still standing." The McNutts had only minor roof damage and downed trees. They spent the day, with neighbors' help, picking up debris. "It gives you a better perspective on what is really important in life." The Cincinnati EnquirerSaed Hindash.