‘i prayed to god, ‘let it stop,’’ survivor says after tornado escape

An angel statue on the front porch is about all that’s left of the home of Larry and Mary Rose DeArman, whose house in the Eagle Point subdivision of Shelby county was completely destroyed

on March 25 while they hid in a basement closet. Even the angel statue had its arms blown off. “I’m not sure where they are,” Mary Rose said. “If I find them, I’m going to glue them back

on.” Maybe the arms were blown off protecting the DeArmans. “The wind, the sound, oh God,” Mary Rose said. Her husband, Larry, was downstairs, looked out the window and shouted upstairs to

her. “Larry stayed downstairs and looked outside and said, ‘Get down here right now,’” she said. “The house started shaking,” she said. Her neighbors were feeling the same thing. “It was

crazy,” said Tonja Sims, who lives directly across from the DeArmans. “I knew it was a tornado. I could feel the pressure. My ears were popping.” The DeArmans hid in a basement closet. Larry

pointed to where the basement bathroom was. “If we had gone in there, we’d be dead,” Mary Rose said. “I was praying to God,” Mary Rose said. “When we got in that closet, I prayed to God,

‘Let it stop,’ and it stopped.” Larry smiled and said, “Why didn’t you start praying sooner!” Standing on the front porch by the angel statue, Mary Rose pointed down to where she and her

husband rode out the storm. “I don’t know why we got spared,” she said. “Most people look at that and say no way anybody could have survived.” The entire house appeared to have collapsed all

around them. Sims, who emerged to find the back of her house blown in, and other neighbors helped rescue the DeArmans. “The neighbors pulled me out,” Mary Rose said. “If it hadn’t been for

them, we’d still be in there.” Larry, 74, and Mary Rose, 69, had to climb up two ladders to get out of the rubble. “Never in my life did I think I would be climbing a ladder,” she said. “I

climbed that ladder like a monkey up a flagpole.” Soon volunteer work crews showed up. State Rep. Arnold Mooney said volunteer crews from the Church of the Highlands and Meadowbrook Baptist

Church helped clear debris from the road so emergency vehicles could enter the neighborhood. “Within an hour, there were people out here with chainsaws,” Mooney said. Gov. Kay Ivey came by

the house on Monday afternoon and met Larry and Mary Rose at the front steps. “That’s the spirit of Alabama folks - resilient,” Ivey said. “Neighbors helping neighbors. That’s what we

Alabamians are all about.” The DeArmans are Catholic and attend weekly Mass at Our Lady of the Valley Church. Mary Rose said she prays the rosary every morning. “It had to be from God,” Mary

Rose said of her brush with death. “God’s got a purpose,” she said. “We don’t know what that purpose is. We’ll have to wait and see.” She has a hunch, though. “This will get the message out

that God is in control of everything,” she said.