2024 tornado outbreak: Storms carry Nebraska family’s photo 70 miles to Iowa field
BLAIR, Neb. (WOWT) - With so many personal effects scattered in the wind during last Friday’s tornado outbreak, it’s a wonder that anything found is still recognizable.
Five days into the clean-up and the surroundings already look less like a mess. But the questions don’t get any easier when you’ve lost everything.
Where will we stay? We need clothes. Will we rebuild? What does our insurance cover? What about a car?
It’s a never-ending list.
“We’re just so busy with all the things to do,” said Laurie Dondelinger. “Insurance checklist, clean up and salvage what we can, especially pictures.”
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For the Dondelingers, Tuesday night was a welcome diversion: VIP treatment at the Zach Bryan concert in downtown Omaha. If only for a moment, their worries could take a backseat. The country music star and his team spent the weekend in Blair and Elkhorn volunteering, removing storm debris.
He offered free tickets to several neighbors for his sold out shows.
“It was great to have a couple of hours to watch my kids dance, let loose, and forget,” Dondelinger said.
The Dondelinger home in Blair held 13 years of memories. Three children were raised there. On Friday afternoon, a tornado removed the top floors along with everything inside.
For all the ills that come with social media, the technology often rises to occasions like this one. In a pasture near Hornick, Iowa, a couple noticed something that didn’t belong: a photograph of a child wearing a snowsuit.
Bob and Jane Madsen let others know, and soon, the internet did its thing.
“That’s my Morgan,” Laurie Dondelinger said.
That little girl in the picture is 16 now. She’s the oldest Dondelinger sibling.
“It’s crazy that it got that far,” Morgan said.
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At least 9 tornadoes confirmed with 5 significant EF-3 tornado paths identified.
Morgan graduates in two years, and it stands to reason that photo which traveled some 70 miles in a devastating storm will be front and center at her high school graduation party.
“We’ll just have a more limited selection now,” Laurie said with a laugh.
The family told 6 News they may have more photos that were found nearby. Volunteers tried to put those sorts of items in totes, but the family hasn’t had time to go through them yet.
It didn’t hurt that 6 News Senior Chief Meteorologist Rusty Lord grew up near Hornick and he knows the couple who found several photos in their pasture, so he shared the picture.
A check from the Omaha National Bank from 1949 was also found.
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