London family recounts terrifying tornado moments: ‘There’s nothing left to protect you’

LONDON, Ky. (FOX 56) — What was meant to be a day of joy quickly turned into a night of horror for Nicholas and Tyneal Mays.

Just hours after Tyneal walked across the stage at graduation at Eastern Kentucky University, the weekend’s deadly tornado tore through their home, ripping away the roof only seconds after Tyneal and their daughter left the bedroom for the bathroom.

“The wind was pulling and yanking, and I don’t know how long that lasted, probably just a couple of seconds, but it was terrifying,” said Nicholas. “I thought they were going to die. I’ve got three kids.”

The storm struck Friday night into Saturday morning. Nicholas said he heard the transformer blow.

“I felt the air suck and pull me forward. The hair on my arms stood up; it got super eerily quiet,” Mays recalled. “I can’t describe the sound; it’s piercingly loud.”

He said he heard his dad’s voice while sitting on the porch waiting for the storm to roll through.

“My dad’s told me my whole life, from baby until I can remember, ‘Hey bub, you know when you hear the freight train, you have to go; it’s too late. When I saw the trees bent, I heard his voice clear as day, and I busted through the door.”

Two of their children were asleep in the living room when he grabbed them and put them in the bathroom.

Once the storm was over, they stepped outside. But just minutes later, a second storm came, and deciding where to go and what to do didn’t come easily.

“A thought dawns on me: ‘There’s nothing here left to protect you,” Nicholas said. ‘What are you going to do?’ And the shoe closet right behind the door—I can’t fit in the shoe closet, so my wife and my three kids get shoved in and I close the door.”

Tyneal said it was one of the scariest moments of her life, worrying about her children and husband and her mom and stepdad right next door in their RV.

“I was finally able to get to the camper, and she was, I could hear her, like, screaming, and my stepdad was just so panicked,” added Tyneal. “I had no idea my niece was with them, my little five-year-old niece; I had no idea. And somehow she’s okay.”

It’s only day four of recovery in London, but the Mays family said it’s felt like a year.

“I guess you just got to pick up and go somewhere else and sit down and just continue; that’s all I know to do,” said Nicholas.

A GoFundMe has been set up for the Mays family.