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05/13/2007: "Crofton area family survives being picked up by tornado"

It is two days later and Barry Meyer of Crofton still doesn’t know what to think.
Meyer owns CJ’s at the Lake, a bar and grill that sits atop the hill along Highway 54C about three miles west of the Highway 121 intersection, and just a mile from the Weigand/Burbach Recreation Area. He’s lived 20 years on the shore of Lewis & Clark Lake and has never seen anything like Saturday’s tornado outbreak. And hopes to never see it again.

“About 5:30 pm, my wife, grandkids and I had just loaded into our SUV to head over to the bar for supper,” said Meyer. “My house is only 200 yards from my business.” Meyer’s son was working at the time and had called to warn him about the tornadic activity south of them.
As they headed into the bar’s driveway, Meyer could see the base of a mile-wide tornado bearing down on them. He stopped to watch the twister while his son evacuated the bar customers. The customers took off east on 54C, which seemed to be the best direction.
“I’m the owner so I told them to lock the doors and leave, not to turn anything off, just get,” Meyer explained. As he stayed and watched to the south, the tornado lifted up into the sky.
“I turned to my wife and said ‘I think it’s going to miss us,’” Myer remembered. But he was wrong. Immediately, he said at least a dozen small twisters popped out of the clouds and touched down all around the vehicle and business. His all-purpose camping convenience store also had campers lined on one side. As the family members watched, one hit the store and left some damage; blew a camper apart; debris was flying everywhere; and one dropped 20-30 ft. away from their SUV.
Meyer tried to tell his wife and grandkids to be quiet and let him think about what to do next.
“My grandkids were screaming, ‘God, don’t let us die,’” Myer said. He backed up to turn east and saw two twisters touch the blacktop and decided to head west to the Weigand Marina. At speeds of 80 mph, he dodged small twisters hitting all around him. One even tossed his car around on the road all in a quarter mile of his business.
When Meyer reached the Weigand turnoff, he could see two tornados over the lake sucking up water. Once again, he turned to his wife and said they would be okay.
Once again Meyer was wrong.
Meyer turned the SUV around to go back and check his business. He said that was his biggest mistake. He’d forgotten about the big, huge, 1.5-mile wide tornado he originally saw. But the old girl had not forgotten about him.
The huge twister chose that moment to drop back down. It picked up his vehicle Immediately all the windows were imploded – all the glass was pushed to the inside of the SUV. They were then picked up inside the black hole but there was no seeing how high or where they were.
Instinctively Meyer grabbed for the two youngest grandchildren fearing they would be sucked out of the vehicle. All had their seatbelts on or they may have been lost.
All the Meyer family could see were trees whirling and debris circling. The twister set them back down on all four wheels about 120 feet from where they were, with the vehicle’s engine still running. It was light again outside the twister but he was in mud so deep, he couldn’t drive out of even in 4-wheel drive.
“Our SUV isn’t a convertible yet but almost,” Meyer said. Behind them, Meyer could see the marina being blasted. Trees were being destroyed and metal from the state park buildings flying everywhere.
“My boat is sunk,” Meyer admitted. He added there seemed to him to be 30 or 40 boats sitting on the shore or sunk in the water. Park officials are considering having the Army Corp of Engineers come and lift the boats out of the marina. Storage sheds were gone and a few windows broken but the main offices and store seemed in good shape.
Meyer had some damage to his bar and grill but is thankful God heard his grandkids and their pleas for their lives. The family suffered minor injuries, which were treated at the Yankton hospital, with the worst being a grandson sustained a broken arm.