Stan Hattle of Lepanto snapped this picture of the storm on the ground.

An F-2 tornado came through the Tri-City area Friday, May 2 causing damage to the Etowah community outside of Lepanto.

According to the National Weather Service in Memphis, a trained spotter saw the tornado at 2:50 p.m. about four miles Northeast of Lepanto. The same storm was spotted by law enforcement at 2:54 near Highway 77 in Lepanto. At 2:57 p.m. the storm tornado touched down just south of Etowah near the Garden Point Community and moved Northeast to Carroll's Corner.

The tornado was estimated to be 150 yards wide with winds in excess of 130 mph.

Tribune reporter Marissa Holiman was in Etowah shortly after the storms Friday afternoon to survey the damage and speak to residents affected by the storm.

Several mobile homes were destroyed in the tornado, and a recreational vehicle was turned upside down. Morgan's Auto, owned by Dale Morgan, was completely destroyed. The building was only four months old.

This was once Morgan Auto Sales, a shop owned by Danny Morgan. The four month old building was located in the Garden Point Community. (Tribune photo / Marissa Holiman)

Power lines were down with many power utility poles snapped in half.

Jo Ellen Yancy said she felt lucky to be alive. She and her family were home Friday afternoon when the storm hit with no warning.

"Our electricity was off and we didn't have any batteries in our radio," Yancy said. "When I opened the window to look out I heard the roar."

Yancy said she yelled out to her family members and stood in shock as she saw the tornado rip through a neighboring trailer.

"I just froze," she said. "I saw it coming but I couldn't move or jump down. If it had hit our trailer it would have gotten me."

Yancy said the trailer that was destroyed was currently unoccupied. They were in the process of remodeling it for her brother and his family. Her trailer did receive some damage. Windows were shattered and part of the roof was ripped off.

"We had a storm shelter in the back, but my aunt is bedfast and we couldn't get her out that fast," Yancy said. "We didn't want to leave her."

Another family in Etowah also counts themselves lucky. Donna Pilgrim was at work Friday afternoon at the East Poinsett County school where she is a speech therapist. She was in the storm cellar when her husband called her to let her know their home had been hit by a tornado.

The Yancy Family in Etowah feels lucky to be alive after this neighboring trailer was destroyed in the storm. No one was injured.

Pilgrim's husband Donnie was at home with his weather radio when the storm struck. He took cover in the hall during the storm.

"I was shocked when I got home when I saw the devastation," Pilgrim said. "We 24 full sized trees literally yanked from the ground."

The Pilgrims were lucky. Their house only sustained minimal damage with broken windows and some roof damage.

"Two big oak trees in my front yard that were probably 30 or 40 years old that were literally picked up," Pilgrim said. "Their rootballs were the size of the my Blazer. We were very, very fortunate."

The mobile home across the street from the Pilgrim's home of 20 years was completely destroyed.

"I told my husband we were luck," Pilgrim said. "'We've been picking up trees, not our homes."

And, Pilgrim said, they weren't picking up those trees alone.

"At first I was shocked because the visible devastation was unreal," she said. "I had never seen anything like that. But then we overwhelmed by the help from our family, friends and neighbors."

Not much is left of this RV that was overturned by the storm. (Tribune Photos by Marissa Holiman)

Pilgrim said students from the high school and the FCCLA came out and raked, picked up and cleaned up.

"We will be cleaning for weeks, but there's not a tree limb left out there," she said.

Pilgrim said it was a lesson about how wonderful the community is, many of which worked from dawn until dark virtually since the storm hit.

"Our insurance agent said he'd seen a lot of damaged areas and none of them had been cleaned up like our house," she said. "I told them no one had friends and family like ours."