VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Nancy Gonzalez and her husband are grateful to be alive.
“We hug each other,” Gonzalez said. “We hug each other tight.”
Her home is in pieces after an EF-3 tornado touched down in the Great Neck area of Virginia Beach Sunday.
Teams with the National Weather Service out of Wakefield said the tornado began as an EF-1 and ended as an EF-1. However, it peaked as an EF-3 with wind gusting up to 150 miles per hour.
At the Gonzalez home, glass, a wall, and paintings are all out of place.
“It was a rollercoaster of emotions,” she said. “We thought everything was gone and so were we.”
Gonzalez said she and her husband knew heavy rain was on the way but didn’t expect how bad it would be.
“The alert came on our phone, on our cells and we ran downstairs, and within a minute, this was the outcome,” she said.
Gonzalez said renovations to prevent flooding had just wrapped up hours before the tornado.
“Yesterday we finished putting in a French drain for the purpose of not having water in the back grounds to hurt the foundation of the home and look what happened. An hour later, we were in this,” Gonzalez said.
Many other neighbors on Haversham Close called in crews to clean up debris and fallen trees off cars and homes. Some homes have minor damage like shattered windows. Though for other homeowners, the damage is much more severe.
Some homes are leaning over or without roofs. While Gonzalez’s home is damaged, she’s not letting the situation break her spirit.
“It has to be a bigger purpose and beyond our understanding that we are standing today,” she said.
Gonzalez said her neighbors are providing her family with a place to stay as they recover.
Across the street on River Road is a similar story of neighbors banding together. Resident Pam Smith said she is relieved no one was hurt.
"On Sunday night, when usually families are at home having dinner. That's amazing," said Smith.
She told 13News Now she lives near the water where the twister began to form.
"Plenty of hurricanes, plenty of Nor'easters, nothing like this. This was very scary," said Smith, who described it as like a scene from a movie.
Trees toppled to the ground and on some homes in Smith's neighborhood.
"It's terrifying to think about and very sad for the people across the road who have so much more damage," she added.
Smith said members of her local civic league came together Monday morning to chop up the fallen trees and clean the river.