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Mother rebuilds after tornado rocks her Praireville home

Harper is thankful her kids weren't home. A tree fell directly on her son's bed. A foam finger is just about all that's left of his room now.

ASCENSION PARISH, La. — It looked like it from all the pictures and video Eyewitness News showed you, but now it's confirmed: An EF-1 tornado did hit Ascension Parish yesterday during the heavy storms.  

We returned back to the hardest hit areas to share how folks are dealing in the aftermath. 

"This is our tray that we sit out every Christmas to leave Santa cookies on," Kassie Harper said.

Yesterday's tornado in Galvez seemed like a nightmare.  

"Pulling up to my driveway I was speechless," she said.

Friday morning, residents on Beech Street who survived it woke up to realize that it was very real.  

"We just started fixing the house up really good, we just got all brand new furniture curtains, curtain rods, the whole nine, new refrigerator, we were fixin' the stove, and we were just getting to the point where we could make it our own," Harper said.

She says God simply had other plans. Harper is one of the people we met yesterday.  She was caught in the storm, and she barely managed to hang on as winds sucked her into her own house.

"He's a really big LSU fan so he had a bunch of LSU stuff it's all underneath his desk," she explained as she surveyed her son's room.

Harper is thankful her kids weren't home.  A tree fell directly on her son's bed.  A foam finger is just about all that's left of his room now.  Harper is trying to save what she can.  

There's just enough to fill one small wastebasket, but it'll mean everything to him. In the middle of this, Harper is going through another struggle. She recently lost her job.

But just a day after the storm, she was actually filled with optimism.  

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"They both love Thomas the train, so for that little boy to clean out his trains and that wooden railway and give it to Cayden, that was a lot," she said.

"We're going to get through it; yesterday, I was not as hopeful," she said.

For now she picks up the pieces, literally, and figuratively, holding on to the memories that a storm can never take away.  

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