Carly Croft, a kindergarten teacher in Brown County, sat in her bathtub May 16 holding her orange and white tabby cat Amelia as the walls of her home shook and what sounded like a bulldozer filled her ears.
Pieces of her ceiling and chunks of insulation from her roof fell on her. Natural light from the outside shone through that wasn’t there before. She was unable to move. Croft, 30, thought she was going to die.
On May 16, a tornado touched down in Monroe County during the evening, damaging homes and local nonprofits south of Bloomington. Homes like Croft’s on Old State Road 37.
“I just sat there in fear for a solid couple minutes, until I heard my neighbor screaming my name and coming in,” Croft said. “And then at that point, I was able to get up and start to kind of climb my way out of my home.”
On the way home from work May 16 and on the phone with her mom, Croft saw white clouds change shape above the grass field across the street. Despite receiving storm alerts, the sky was blue, with no wind or rain.
The clouds started to move more quickly in a circular motion, changing from white to grey. It was the tornado. She got off the phone and called her neighbors to notify them as she sought shelter.
The tornado tore and collapsed her roof, caused tree limbs to fall on her home, shattered all the windows and totaled her car. The only room left untouched was her bedroom, the only room in the house where all of her belongings survived. She lost her grandfather’s books and artworks that he left her when he died.
“It was a brick and limestone building, it's one of the safest structures you could be in. So, and I was in the bathtub, and it was a very safe structure to be in,” Croft said. “I wasn't harmed, and neither was anyone else here.”
Many of the homes around her are still standing and suffered minimal damage.
Croft has renters insurance to cover her belongings and is awaiting final estimates. Her home has been torn down and will be rebuilt. Croft said that will take around six to seven months. She is currently living with her parents in Bloomington.
Croft has lived in Bloomington her entire life.
She’s lived in her home for five years and now all that’s left is the concrete foundation and dirt. Her muffin tin, a gardening glove and a fork are one of the few items left in the dirt reminding her of the home that was once there.
She is still processing what happened and struggles with the trauma.
“Sounds will affect me, like air conditioning kicking on because of that, like whooshing sound,” Croft said. “Complete silence, even if the air conditioning kicks off and there's complete silence, because before the storm started it was completely silent.”
