- Calera, Ala. resident Tim Striegel and his daughter were debating whether or not to evacuate their home before the EF-1 tornado hit their town on Saturday, March 15
- However, their friend told them to evacuate to his home, and the father and daughter narrowly missed the destruction of their home by minutes
- They had to seek shelter from the Calera Police Department, who had them sleep in the town jail that night
One father and daughter missed the tornado that ravaged Alabama just by minutes, according to Fox Weather, AL.com and CBS 42 Morning News.
Tim Striegel, a resident of Calera, Ala., told Fox Weather on Sunday, March 16, that he narrowly missed the EF-1 tornado that ultimately destroyed his mobile home.
A violent and severe storm outbreak hit the South and Midwest, stretching from Wisconsin to Missouri began on Friday, March 14, and killed at least 36 people across seven states.
The EF-1 tornado hit Calera on Saturday, March 15, with estimated winds of 100 to 125 mph. Striegel and his 31-year-old daughter “contemplated” staying or leaving once he received the weather tornado alert.
Tim Striegel on March 16, 2025 in Calera, Alabama.
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“I called a really good friend of mine, and he says, ‘No, you’re not staying. Get up to my house and get in the basement,’ ” Striegel recalled. “A few minutes after we left and got up there, [and] it hit… It just destroyed.”
Striegel, whose home was one of the only ones in his neighborhood destroyed, said the tornado hit exactly one day after he got it insured.
“The only way I’m processing it is just living in the moment of knowing that me and my daughter are okay. Nobody was injured in this,” he said of the wreckage. “This is just a property that can be replaced, but me and my daughter, that’s a blessing.”
Stiegel told AL.com “it was devastating” to return to see his destroyed trailer.
“It’s overwhelming,” Striegel said. “I’m trying to keep up with what they’re saving and what they’re throwing away. It’s just hectic.”
“The hardest part is trying to make sure me and my daughter have a place to stay,” he said.
A mobile home shows damage the morning after it was hit by a tornado on March 16, 2025 in Calera, Alabama.
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Calera police officers rescued Stiegel and his daughter’s dog from the rubble. Hours later, a volunteer officer from Vestavia, Ala., found the father, daughter and their pets outside their destroyed home in the middle of the night, stranded with nowhere to go.
The officer transported them to the Calera Police Department around 1 a.m. on Saturday. “We had to figure out what to do,” Calera Police Chief David Hyche told CBS 42 Morning News. “We started making calls, trying to find a place for them to shelter; they were exhausted and hungry.”
“We called the Red Cross and everyone else we could think of but no one could help on such short notice,” Hyche told the Shelby County Reporter. “The Red Cross said that they could provide assistance the following day. Next, we called dozens of hotels but no rooms were available.”
Siding from a nearby mobile home park lays in the yard of a house that was damaged by tornado on March 16, 2025 in Calera, Alabama.
Jan Sonnenmair/Getty
By 2 a.m., the police department made a makeshift space for the two and their pets to sleep the night at the jail.
“We made them as comfortable as we could at the police department and got them something to eat,” he told CBS 42. “It was a sad situation, I think that’s the first time we’ve ever had a cat and a dog in our jail, but they behaved.”
“I hope that we can learn from this and come up with a better alternative for people in this situation in the future,” Hyche told the Reporter. “I want to thank our officers and dispatchers who stayed after a long difficult day to make sure that this family didn’t fall through the cracks.”
