I just went back and read his text and reviewed the photos more closely. God damn.

... Ann and our daughter Imogen Davidson White were in the MFRI building (Imogen was there after school to take advantage of Ann's fast Internet connection for a French project) and knew that a storm was coming but they had not heard anything about the possibility of a tornado locally: when they felt a sudden drop in pressure they looked out and saw debris whipping by the windows and dived under the nearest desks. The main funnel passed right through the center of the building and out the other side; the building appears to have been shredded. Amazingly all those in the building survived, but with varying degrees of injury. Ann's colleague Toby was in the adjacent smaller photocopying building and was thrown about 80 yards across the parking lot; MFRI's huge photocopier was thrown 50 yards. Toby's dog Muffin was with him but was never found. Ann was right in the path of the funnel and was left in the open when it passed, everything around her having been sucked away. She held on to the carpet fixed to the concrete floor of the building and a table leg while the tornado was pulling her legs upwards. She suffered bruises and scratches on her knees and lower legs where debris struck them, and a number of heavy cinder blocks from the base of the adjacent building 20 yards away landed a few feet from where her head was. Imogen was under a solid desk which was completely covered with rubble when the building fell apart: she was not excavated for another 40 minutes. She suffered a sharp bruise on one arm and skin scraped off her elbow. If you look at the photos of the state of the building after the tornado, it is extraordinary that their injuries were not worse.

Tragically, the daughters of Pat Marlatt, Ann's close colleague, had just left the building and were driving away when the funnel picked them up and carried the car several hundred yards, over one of the high-rise dorms, before dropping the car into the woods beyond. They will be sadly missed by everyone who knew them. Pat himself was in the middle of the MFRI building and suffered severe lacerations on the head when the building collapsed; he was the last to be extricated....