Ex-Winfield man among Joplin survivors
Jordan Aubey believes he was in the “hand of God” as the deadly Joplin, Mo. tornado tore through his apartment, destroying everything but the bathtub he clung to.
The 27-year-old former Winfield man said he'd looked outside just moments earlier and saw the deadly twister churning along his street “heading right for me.”
“I knew this was like Goliath,” he said Wednesday. “I looked up as far up and as far down as I could see, and as far left and as far right. There was no blue sky. There was no sky that was not moving — no matter where I looked.”
Aubey, a TV news reporter, said he knew he was in trouble when the pressure from Sunday's monster twister that killed 122 people grew so intense that his ears popped. He thought of his parents finding his body and told himself, “I'm going to fight.”
After seeking shelter in a bathtub, Aubey waited in darkness with only the sound of the tornado thrashing outside to prepare him for impact.
“The walls were shaking. I heard all the windows and glass in my apartment shatter. I knew the time was here, it had come,” he recalled.
Aubey said he had hoped the tornado would change course, but soon realized it was upon him as the walls around him ripped away.
“It was a direct hit,” he said. “I didn't see it but I felt the tub actually being picked up. I was fighting with the tornado. It was trying to make the tub lopsided to flip me out. Then I could feel that I was whirling with the tornado.” The next thing he knew, Aubey said, he was splayed out in the bathtub, which fell to the ground split in half. His second-story apartment and others around it were gone. Injured, and pinned under four full pieces of drywall, Aubey said he cried out for help.
“It was eerily quiet,” he said. “I knew either a lot of people were trapped or they're gone.”
Eventually, Aubey squirmed out from the debris and was joined by two friends who lived nearby and helped him flag down a motorist.
Aubey said he was taken to a hospital in Joplin, then transferred to another hospital in Oklahoma, where he was still recovering Wednesday from a broken hip, which required metal rods to be surgically implanted in his leg.
“I feel like I've been in the hand of God this past month,” Aubey said, noting he faced death a few weeks earlier when his spleen ruptured. “Doctors told me both times, ‘If not for God you wouldn't be around.' I'm just in awe.”
A graduate of Columbia College in Chicago, Aubey is the son of Bea and Rev. Dennis Aubey of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church in Winfield. Formerly of Aurora, Palatine and Winfield, he moved to Joplin four years ago to join KOAM TV as a general assignment reporter, he said.
In a twist of irony, Jordan Aubey said his first big story was about a category F4 tornado that struck Picher, Ok., in May 2008, killing eight people. “This is tornado alley, so everyone is fully aware of what can happen,” he said. “But you get used to it, because the odds of them happening are slim.”
Bea Aubey said she and her husband drove all night Sunday to reach their son after hearing about the tornado and losing touch with him.
The 10-hour drive was a terrifying experience, she said, because it wasn't until they neared St. Louis that the parents learned Jordan was alive.
“I got a phone call from my son's girlfriend, and she said, ‘Bea, I can't find him. I'm looking in ditches, I'm looking all over.' She started crying. I started crying. I told her to look in his building. She said, ‘Bea, there's not a building to look in,” Bea Aubey recalled. “It was an awful feeling not knowing if he was dead or alive. We didn't know if we were going to visit a morgue or a hospital or what.”
Jordan is expected to be released from the hospital Friday, and the family hopes to return to Winfield over the weekend. While Jordan Aubey says he is looking forward to home-cooked meals and some quality time with his folks, he said it's also his duty to return to Joplin quickly and report on the disaster that destroyed much of his community and left at least 122 dead.
“As a journalist, you have an obligation to people,” he said. “And there definitely are a lot of obligations for me as a journalist here now.”
The Addison-based Lutheran Church Charities has set up a fund to help Aubey, who had no insurance, begin to rebuild his life. For more information on that fund, or other funds supporting Joplin tornado victims, visit www.lutheranchurchcharities.org or call (866) 455-6466.