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Family Cleans Up After Tornado Destroys Home

A Sallisaw family has found a new place to live after their home was destroyed in an EF-1 tornado. Chris Reese and his two sons, Everett, 9, and Garrison, 7, ha...

A Sallisaw family has found a new place to live after their home was destroyed in an EF-1 tornado.

Chris Reese and his two sons, Everett, 9, and Garrison, 7, have been sorting through debris, trying to salvage what's left of their belongings before moving in to their new home.

The National Weather Service confirmed an EF-1 tornado touched down south of Sallisaw at 11:20 p.m. Saturday. The tornado was 250 yards wide and traveled for one-half mile with winds between 100-110 mph.

Reese and his two boys were home during the storm. Reese said when he heard the strong winds, he looked out the window.

“Tornado coming right across that ridge,” he said as he pointed to the field across the street. Reese said he immediately told his sons to take cover in the bathroom.

"From the time I first heard the tornado to the time it was over and we were trying to get out of the house, it was less than a minute," Reese said.

Within sixty seconds, their house was destroyed. The roof had been peeled off. The installation was torn to shreds, and plastered in the trees outside.

"My oldest boy said 'Well, this is has been a bad, long weekend,' and I said, 'Yeah, it kind of has,'" Reese said.

His younger son reminded him how lucky they were just to survive the storm.

"I guess its that little kid point of view," Reese said. "It definitely made you stop and think and realize what's important. You know all of that stuff in there, all those toys can be replaced. And he's right, all of it can be so it doesn't really matter."

The Reese family says they expect to move into their new home sometime within the next few days. After they get settled, Reese says he'll figure out what to do with the home that was destroyed.

No one was injured in the tornado.

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