GAMBER, Md. — Home alone.
Normally, Jennifer Blake would have enjoyed a little time to herself with her husband and two girls not at home, that is until she heard what she thought was a tornado bearing down on their house in Gamber.
“I heard it. You know, like they say, it was really loud and eerie,” said Jennifer, “It sounded like a train, and I thought, ‘Oh my God’, and then the pine tree fell on our garage, but I thought it was the house at the time.”
Jennifer’s husband knew there were storms in the area, but he had no idea his house was straight in its path.
“So I get a phone call from her and she was extremely scared,” said Jack Blake, “You could hear it right in her voice right from the get and she was taking care of some stuff and she was like, ‘Jack, what do I do? Jack, what do I do?’ and I just kept saying, ‘Get to the basement. Get to the basement. Get to the basement.”
Jennifer rode out the storm with the family dog in the basement, as large limbs fell on the Blake’s vehicles and covered the yard, yet somehow, their two-story home came through relatively unscathed.
“And if you look back at the path of destruction, it came right up to our house and stopped,” Jack told us as he pointed to the storm’s trek.
Jack is convinced a welcome mat outside the door of his home may have something to do with that.
“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15,” he read as he displayed the worn mat.
And despite the damage, he’s thankful.
“Considering everything else that you look around and see, I think we were blessed.”
