The Sunset Hills New Year’s Eve Tornado—One Year Later

Almost one year ago, the Sunset Hills community was fresh off a holiday season awaiting New Year’s Eve. Katie, a wife and mother of two, lived off of West Watson Road in Sunset Hills. Little did she know that a quiet day with her children would literally turn into the calm before the storm. This is her story.

Katie, her husband and her two young daughters were renting a house off of West Watson Road on Dec. 31, 2010. New Year’s Eve plans consisted of a quiet family game night at home. The family was going to cook chicken and make ice cream sundaes. Katie’s daughters were off on Christmas break and her husband was at work in St. Peters.

“We had just gotten back from the grocery story and we were going to hang out and just go about our business,” Katie said. “I unloaded the groceries and the girls were begging me to go to Steak ‘n Shake for lunch.”

Katie initially said no to the lunch offer since they had just went to the store. However, she suddenly changed her mind. They sat down to lunch at Steak ‘n Shake on Lindbergh when she began to receive text messages asking her if she was scared or nervous.

“They were saying there was a tornado warning in the area,” Katie said. “We didn’t have a basement, so if this ever happened we would go next door (where her sister- and brother-in-law were renting a house).

As they were waiting for their food, Katie noticed the sky was turning a different color. After several more texts, Katie decided to pack up the food and head home. As she paid for their order, the power went out and knocked her out of the credit card system. Then her mother-in-law called and Katie started to worry, waited for the system to come back on and then headed back toward West Watson. 

“I drove down Lindbergh and I was sitting at the light by East Watson and Lindbergh. I felt a little bit of pressure while I was on the phone with my mother-in-law. I didn’t realize at the time the tornado was happening at that moment. The pressure I felt was the tornado going through,” Katie said. 

Katie’s sister-in-law then called and said that the houses were gone, that the garages were gone—Katie couldn’t quite get out of her what was going on.

Katie turned the car back around and drove down Lindbergh. She saw trees down, cars flipped over and her adrenaline was kicking in. She drove over power lines and it was so immediately after the storm that rescue personnel had not yet arrived on the scene. She parked at O’Leary’s and walked through the parking lot, observing the destruction on her property.

“The house that was behind us was completely gone. This was the one lone house that was facing Lindbergh. Our barn in the backyard was completely gone and the four-car garage in the backyard was demolished,” she said. 

Katie’s house’s entire back wall was detached from the rest of the house, all of the windows were blown out, the garage door blew in and the exterior wall of the garage was detached. The roof had damage where one could see through. 

“I called my husband and told him it was bad,” Katie said. “I couldn’t get anything other than ‘It’s bad’ out.”

Since Katie’s family was renting the house the owner said that they needed to move themselves and all of the salvageable belongings out. While living in with her in-laws for a couple of weeks, Katie received calls from Sunset Hills Alderman Dee Baebler. 

“Dee was in constant communication with us as to our immediate needs. Yes, we had a lot of loss, but a lot of things we could salvage too. Our immediate need was finding housing,” Katie said.

The family was already in the process of saving to buy a house, but within two weeks Baebler found a family who were looking to rent out a house. Exactly a month to the day of the tornado, Katie’s family moved into that house in Crestwood. 

“She (Baebler) was our angel during this situation. She gave us everything we needed and then some. She found us our house. We felt that it was such a God thing that Dee came into our lives,” Katie said.

Katie’s family is still in the Crestwood house and they are purchasing it at the end of this year. 

Looking back on the day of the tornado, Katie remembers just standing there in awe of what happened. 

“We saw a bunch of photos and random things that blew out of the window,” Katie said. “What was funny that I had a big giant sized Eeyore and it was in one lone tree that was in the backyard.” 

A month later Baebler called and said that somebody found an art project of Katie’s daughter’s. 

“It was a Thanksgiving project from my old job as a preschool teacher. It was a handprint of my husband, mine and my daughter’s it said what she was thankful for,” Katie said. “I thought it was fitting that it said that ‘I am thankful for my family’ and that was the one art project someone found.”