Johnel Langerston Sr. was hundreds of miles away in Kentucky with his daughter when his phone rang the afternoon of May 16. It was his wife, La Tasha Langerston.

“[There was a] panic in her voice describing the scene,” he said.

La Tasha Langerston was on her way to pick up their 17-year-old son, Johnel Langerston Jr., from school. By then, the sunlight had been replaced with menacing dark clouds. High winds uprooted several trees around her. Debris was scattered everywhere. She was in the path of the tornado.

“Keep going, just keep going,” La Tasha Langerston recalled her husband telling her on the phone. “‘I don't feel safe. Stay on the phone with me.’ He was just like, ‘Whatever you do, don't stop. Just keep driving.’”

When Langerston knew his wife and son were safe, he hung up and b

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