By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY
christopher.tuffley@newssun.com
LORIDA -- Sunday was a gray, windy and rainy day. At about 4:45 p.m., Kim Setter sat under her front porch roof watching the downpour and listening to the water drum on the tin.
Inside the mobile home her son Jeremy Jr., daughter Allison and Allison's fiancé A. J. Enriquez were watching television and quietly talking. The Enriquez's two-month-old son, Little A. J., slept.
The wind picked up, sending driving rain through the porch, so Kim moved inside too, leaving the front doors open.
Suddenly the doors slammed shut with a loud bang. Looking out a back window it was solid black; the tops of the Australian pines bordering their property were bending over, their tops touching the ground.
"God gave us a warning," said Jeremy Setters Jr.
But not much time to react.
The house began to shake, the noise so loud "you couldn't hear," Kim Setter said. "You can't even think that fast."
Enriquez and Jeremy shouted to Allison to get herself and the baby into the bathtub.
A back window shattered and glass sprayed through the house. In addition to the roaring wind -- "it does sound like a train," Jeremy said -- the family could hear tearing, thudding, and loud crashes.
It was about then, Kim Setter said, seconds after the front doors had slammed shut, the door she had just backed away from blew out of its frame and flew across the lawn. "The roof peeled off like paper," she said. "I watched my house going everywhere."
That's when the mobile home rose into the air and slammed back to the ground.
As suddenly as it arrived, the tornado was gone. The strong odor of burning wiring filled the house, smoke seeped from the walls. Kim rushed to the breaker box snapping off circuits.
Little A. J. was calm in his mother's arms. Allison was in shock.
The family went out to assess the damage. Part of the roof was in the side yard, part of it was in the front yard, part of it was across the street in a neighbor's yard.
The back window of Enriquez's car, which he'd just bought, had been speared by a board.
Other boards stuck out of the ground like arrows that had missed their targets.
The dryer and the inside of the washing machine were in the front yard, having been blown up and over the house from their cement pad by the back door. The outside of the washing machine lay in the neighbor's yard across the street, next to the roofing.
Bits and pieces of the family's life were scattered everywhere -- a shoe, the baby's swing, a chair, a table, fishing poles. A bath towel hung neatly on a broken roof beam, as if set out to dry.
The pipes to the washing machine had been sucked up with the machine; electrical wiring was ripped and dangerous. One wall had separated from the floor, half the roof was gone, and the house torn off its foundation.
The only saving grace, said Jeremy Setter Sr., who had rushed home from work, was that "everybody was OK."
He is also grateful for friends, one of whom put the family up in motel Sunday night. His employer, Triple-G Dairy, is putting the family into one of the houses at the dairy until they can make permanent arrangements.
The house is damaged beyond repair. They have to find homes for their three dogs. Their insurance company is being difficult.
"We're trying our hardest out here," said Kim. "It's not like I have a bank account full of money."
The wind picked up at that moment. One of the dogs stopped in its tracks, faced into it, his nose quivering, his ears back, his body tense.
Everyone looked toward the south.
Kim crossed her arms as it began to rain. "I'm going to looking up into the sky from now on," she said.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - www.newssun.com/062712-Setters