Abby Peters was huddled in a closet with her daughter, Veronica Bowers, and Bowers' 10-month-old daughter when an EF2 tornado struck their Valley View community in Cook County.
According to a fundraiser held for the family, the three escaped Bowers' home alive, but Bowers was seriously injured and remains hospitalized.
Bowers was manager of the Shell travel center at Interstate 35 and Lone Oak Road in Valley View, where 50 to 60 people took refuge in restrooms and the restaurant attached to the center when the tornado struck.
By Sunday morning, the gas station was reduced to a pile of rubble. More than 50 cars were parked in the parking spaces, next to the gas station and in what was once a shade awning. At least four large trailers were parked there, one overturned and another entangled around a pole that once supported the gas station's cover.
The air around the station smelled bitter, like smoke, and warped metal and disintegrating pieces of buildings and signs creaked, groaned, and clanged in the wind.
Not only did Bowers and Peters lose their home and car, but Bowers also lost his job as a manager at a Shell gas station.
“Like others affected by this disaster, they escaped with only the clothes on their backs and their cell phones,” the fundraiser description said.
The fundraiser is aimed at raising money to help the family cover medical and other expenses while Bowers is hospitalized and then searching for a new job. The family is accepting donations through a GiveSendGo fundraiser, as well as through First Baptist Church of Valley View, Valley View United Methodist Church and the city's community center.
