One year later: Tornado aftermath in Saline County: Part 2/Tornado turned house into kindling

From left, Jessica Keller gets help with a juice bottle from her mother, Stephanie Keller. The Keller family lost their home when the March 12, 2006, F3-force tornado swept through western Saline County. [Click to enlarge]

Editor's note: This is the second story in a weeklong series about the aftermath of the March 12, 2006, tornado that hit Saline County.

When the March 12, 2006, tornado roared across Route AC in western Saline County, Dan Keller was right under the storm in a root cellar with no doors as it blasted his home.

He was able to look the storm in the eye, so to speak.

"Me and my mom and dad had a bird's eye view of it," he said. "Or I guess a groundhog's eye view."

He wasn't scared, though. He was angry.

"It made me mad," he said. "I threw my flashlight at it."

He had cause. The storm was in the process of turning his house into kindling.

"The house looked like it was in a wood chipper," he said. "It looked like white straws twisting around."

Keller had helped his family to safety. His wife, Stephanie, and two young children -- Adrian, who was 3 at the time, and Jessica, who was 2 -- were huddled in the basement of Bob and Teresa Thomason's home across the road.

The Thomason's home was destroyed as well, but the Kellers were unharmed.

"I keep telling everybody I wanted a new home and God saw it my way," Stephanie Keller said.

They hope to be in their new home soon, though the rebuilding process got off to a slow start when a misunderstanding delayed assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The Kellers had no insurance, but with FEMA help and the generous support of the community, they were able to get started building a new home on the same site as the old house.

Dan Keller, who calls himself "a jack of all trades, master of none" has done the design and much of the construction work on the new house.

The couple has been working to obtain financing needed to finish construction. They hope to move in this May, weather permitting, even though the work may not be finished.

"We'll just be really excited to get in our own house," Stephanie Keller said.

The children seem to be coping well with the aftermath of the storm, Stephanie Keller said, though being uprooted from their home was not always easy for them.

"They talk about it," she said. "And one of the kids at school called Adrian 'tornado head.'"

The family was able to stay in a nearby house owned by Doug Borgman, for which they are extremely grateful, Keller said. Borgman's generosity made the disruption in their lives a bit less because they could stay near home and among friends.

In addition to the disruption of moving, another change in their lives is that Stephanie Keller, who had been a stay-at-home mom before the storm, has gotten a job to help pay for rebuilding.

But she said she really enjoys her new job with the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Among the things they were able to salvage were most of their tax records, which Keller said was lucky because it saved them the hassle of having to chase down all that information.

"It's been a year, but it's something we still deal with every day," she said. "We don't wish this on our worst enemies."

Contact Eric Crump at

marshallfaith@socket.net