My parents Gary and Roxann Rymek were the victims of an awful powerful tornado in Streator, IL on June 11th.
I received a video of the tornado and phone call from my mom right before the tornado hit that no one will ever want to hear. My mom screaming and crying and I could barely make out what she was saying. The call dropped. I called and called for over an hour to get a hold of her or my Dad and I couldn’t get through to them. Then my cell phone service dropped as that same storm system headed to us. 45 minutes of panic, tears, and turned stomachs we finally get a call from my mom from OSF in Streator. My father has a broken ankle and he needs surgery this coming Tuesday. My father already suffers with shoulder pain from rotator issues and severe arthritis and both he and my mom are on cpap machines. My mom struggles with excruciating back pain from spondyliothesis and she can not bend. All of their medicines and cpap machines are in the rubble. My mom said today, “everything we accumulated over 65 years a tornado took it all away in one day”.
when we got them situated for the night my mom and dad told the story how they could only hide in their closet as the house didn’t have a basement or storm shelter. This is something they have been worried about for a while and have been discussing getting put in. The story is gut wrenching: “we held on to each other as we felt the votex pulling us away”. It was love and God and prayers that kept them with me and my sister.
Multiple news channels have reached out to my family for interviews so I’m sure many have already seen the devastation in this small town and video of my dad being rescued. Inside edition, Channel 2, Channel 7, Fox News, my parents are all over them. They lost everything, all 3 vehicles, the house, everything they have accumulated over the years.
If you could find it in your heart to please help my family, we greatly appreciate anything. My parents are the best parents in the world and I’d like to try to help restore some of what this one severely traumatic event took from them.