Storm rips apart trailer: Couple survives with only minor injuries

By AMY SATTERWHITE / Staff Reporter for the Southern Standard

Family members of storm victim Thomas Knox said Knox and his girlfriend just barely escaped serious injury when storms hit their Sparta Highway trailer Wednesday afternoon. (Amy Satterwhite photo)

A local couple barely escaped serious injury after what is being called a tornado swept through the area Wednesday, severely damaging a Sparta Highway trailer and a nearby barn.

According to the victim’s mother, Teresa Dinwiddie, her son, Thomas Knox, and his girlfriend, Rhiannon Hill, were inside when the tornado hit his grandmother’s trailer where they had been living for only a few months.

“He was just telling me they were in the bedroom and the windows blew out. And then the roof came off. He held onto Rhiannon and was trying to pull her out,” said Dinwiddie, who was on the scene shortly after the incident.

“They got in a bedroom closet and that’s the only wall that’s not collapsed. The trailer is gone and is completely demolished. Everything in it is up in the trees and the barn’s gone.”

Dinwiddie said Hill was treated for stitches at the emergency room after being transported by private vehicle. The couple’s 14-month-old son was not in the trailer at the time.

She said she was not sure what personal items the couple would be able to salvage or where they would be staying, but noted most of the household items in the trailer, and the trailer itself, belonged to Knox’s grandmother, Jane Moore.

Moore also owns the barn near the trailer that suffered major damage.

Warren County Sheriff Jackie Matheny said Wednesday he was working under the assumption a tornado hit Warren County.

“I don’t know anybody who actually saw a tornado, but the damage certainly looks like it,” said Matheny. “Also, the storm went on through White County and the news people were saying it was on the ground, so I presume it was tornado. It did a lot of damage.”

Another barn was reported damaged on Bugger Ridge Road, with the tornado moving over Highway 70 and damaging trees, then hitting the trailer and barn on Moore’s property and just missing the offices of Hillis Trucking on Sparta Highway. Trees were down on power lines on Farrell Rogers Road near Hatch Road and some damage was reported on Great Falls Road.

Matheny said there were no reports Wednesday afternoon of serious injury.

“Nobody was hurt real bad as of yet that we know of,” he said.