BALDWIN COUNTY, Ala. ( WKRG ) — A couple in Summerdale is grateful to be alive a week after severe weather smashed their home. Ruth and Tommy Stanford have a lot to fix and a lot to be thankful for.
There’s a board on the window, and blue tarp on the roof of this Summerdale home. A week ago, severe weather toppled a tree on their roof at the front window . The couple that lived here escaped to the innermost room of their home seconds before disaster.
“I said, ‘I hear rumbling.’ I said, ‘you don’t hear it?’ He said, ‘No, I don’t hear it,’ and I said, ‘Well, it’s here,’” Ruth Stanford said. “I was trying to close the bathroom door, and I had it closed about three or four inches, like an enclosed, then it was a big old crash.”
Ruth Stanford said she convinced her husband to stay in the bathroom until the storm passed. That allowed them to dodge the debris that would have come crashing down on them if they stayed in their bed.
“When we went in the bathroom, I just felt like that we need to stay in there, and so we just stayed in there and just waited on everything to be silent. After it was silent, we just started praying in spirit and thanking God that He saved us. So He wants us here a while longer,” said Ruth Stanford. The Stanford’s have lived in this home for more than 50 years and say it’s a miracle they survived this storm.