LEILA FADEL, HOST:
At least 42 people are dead after the tornadoes, dust storms and wildfires in eight states over the weekend. But the death toll doesn't tell the full story of a natural disaster. Surviving a storm is also traumatic. NPR's Frank Morris brings us the story of two people in Missouri who cheated death.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: Jeff and Christina Adler stand in a field littered with sheet metal, scanning the hilly woods beyond. This is Wayne County, Missouri - very rural, deep in the Ozarks. Their camping trailer was parked on this spot Friday night when the tornado hit.
JEFF ADLER: All these rocks here were shooting through the windows like somebody was shooting. It just started to tip over it and just started rolling and rolling and rolling. I thought to myself, do you know what? This is the way I'm going to die. And right after that, I was laying on the ground. Fell out, instead of being thrown.
MORRIS: Out of the disintegrating camper and into the cold, hard wind and rain just outside the tornado.
CHRISTINA ADLER: I just remember looking up and yelling for him. And he was yelling for me, and he jumped on top of me as the storm was going, and we just held each other.
MORRIS: They were bruised and a little bit cut up but basically OK. Lucky. A woman camping a stone's throw away from the Adlers died in her trailer. A married couple just across the creek were thrown from their home and killed in the storm. The tornado obliterated the Adlers' camper and flung it a block away.
J ADLER: Our camper is in pieces from here all the way over there. A lot of our camper is in that creek there. The actual frame and tires is laying in the field on the other side of it.
MORRIS: Their trailer was parked semipermanently on this campground, a refuge from their home two hours away in suburban St. Louis. Adler says their belongings were strewn out over a hundred yards, but that's not what they're concerned about.
J ADLER: All our stuff, you know, the camper - that's all material stuff.
C ADLER: We don't care about that.
J ADLER: There's nothing in there that was even worth worrying about. Right now, it's doing everything we can to find our dog.
MORRIS: Their dog, Piper, a 10-pound shih tzu, 3 years old. Christina says she saw Piper outside the trailer in the storm, but the terrified dog ran off, and they've been looking for her ever since.
C ADLER: I think she'll come to me. I know she'll come to me. She hears my voice, she will come to me.
J ADLER: Christina faces the woods and calls.
C ADLER: (Shouting) Piper. Piper Rose, come to mommy. (Crying) I know she's scared.
MORRIS: Frank Morris, NPR News, Des Arc, Missouri.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLEET FOXES' "THE CASCADES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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