June 14, 2001
 

Ann Coxbill recovers a stuffed animal from the debris in her yard Thursday, the day after a tornado stormed through Seward County.

"Our ears popped and then BOOM," Sara, 23, said Thursday while friends picked up mementos strewn across cornfields. "The house was gone." 

During the destruction, Sara tried to push the blanket up to catch a breath, but it wouldn't budge. The tornado that was destroying their century-old farmstead east of Seward had tossed a piece of concrete foundation on her. She was treated at a Seward hospital Wednesday night for bruises from her left foot to her left shoulder. Helen Banzhaf was treated for a few scrapes. 

Amazingly, authorities say, theirs were the only injuries from a monstrous tornado that ripped across Seward County, damaging two other homes and tossing around cars and tanks of propane and anhydrous ammonia. There was another twister in Jefferson County, and other severe storms caused lowland flooding across eastern Nebraska, but the most severe damage occurred around the Banzhafs' home, two miles east of Seward on U.S. Highway 34. 

The final toll: 11 counties declared disaster areas by Gov. Mike Johanns, who toured the Banzhafs' farm Thursday morning. 
 

	Rex Owens helps clean up his neighbor's house, east of Seward, that was destroyed by a tornado last night.

*** 

"That's hard to believe that this has been here through three generations and 100 years," Helen Banzhaf said while her husband, Marvin, talked with neighbors. "He worked so hard to keep this place up." 

Among the items found Thursday morning: a sausage press used by two generations of Banzhaf fathers, Helen's purse, and rain- and mud-soaked baby pictures of Sara and her 21-year-old sister, Amanda, who was at her Lincoln apartment during the storm. The family was wondering Thursday how they would contact 18-year-old son Theodore, who left recently for Marine boot camp in San Diego. 

Sara said she and her dad watched the storm clouds just after 8 p.m. Her mother had already run to the basement, and they followed shortly. 

While Sara and Helen sought shelter under blankets, Marvin fought to keep the basement door closed. 

Darkness and rain greeted all three when they emerged minutes later. Their two-story house had vanished. Up the street, about 50 tanks lay scattered and dented at the Dorchester Co-Op's tank depot. A 1,000-gallon diesel tank had been overturned and leaked fuel. 
 

Duffek Implement east of Seward, Neb., sustained major damage when a tornado tore through the area Wednesday night.

Authorities evacuated the area after the storm but allowed residents to return Thursday morning. 

The twister formed a few miles to the southwest, on the edge of Seward, before hopping along a path to the northeast, said Seward County Emergency Manager Bud Erickson. It jumped over the town of Garland and its 247 residents, he said. 

Erickson said damage to the Dorchester Co-op Tank Farm totaled $500,000. An implement dealership suffered close to $220,000 in damage. 

Johanns, while visiting the area Thursday morning, stood on the Banzhafs' brick foundation and looked into the southwest corner of the basement, where the family had huddled near an old, white freezer. 

"It's remarkable that they would survive something like that," he said. 

*** 

Across the street, Ann and Don Coxbill thought the same thing after watching the tornado level their neighbors' home. They then rushed down to their basement. 

"You could just feel it sucking everything out of the air," Ann Coxbill said. 

The Coxbills moved to Nebraska 12 years ago from the San Francisco Bay area to avoid earthquakes. Thursday, their previously white house lacked windows and was stained with mud. Joshua, their 18-year-old son, gathered items in a plastic trash can, including a stack of thank-you notes he had written after his recent graduation from Milford High School. He was in Lincoln during the storm. 

Ann Coxbill clutched a brown stuffed animal in her left arm while stepping over pieces of wood thrown from the Banzhafs' home. 

"I think it's the Banzhafs'," she said. "I've tried to pick up whatever I can find of theirs since they have nothing left." 

*** 

When Dolores Bartholomew heard that a tornado had struck a good friend's home, she knew what she had to do. She started baking. Thursday morning, Bartholomew, 69, and her husband, Richard, joined scores of other volunteers trying to provide comfort in the storm's aftermath. 

They arrived at the home of Arnold and Eleanor Luebbe with an aluminum sheet pan of blueberry coffee cake. 

"I figured there might be someone here who could use these," Bartholomew said. Sure enough, about a half-dozen people were at the Luebbes' home, repairing wires and other damage. 

Arnold Luebbe, 75, said his billfold was sucked out of the house and he found it empty. Just west of the house, corn was reduced to stubble barely poking from the ground. 

Two miles to the north, Helen Banzhaf looked at her house, now a few rows of bricks barely poking from the ground. 

"I'm amazed that the three of us walked out of that basement," she said. 

World-Herald staff writer Joe Dejka contributed to this report.