Levity Amid The Rubble: Why Is This Man Attacking Dryer With A Shovel?
(CBS) – After Thursday's tornado and the devastation it brought, Emily Dickow wasn't asking for much.
That's why her fiancé was using a shovel Friday to bang away at their dryer, which was partly buried in lumber and other materials.
Inside the dryer were the only clean clothes she had left.
"Dried it right before I left for work yesterday. It's just underwear. But when it's all you have …," she tells CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot.
Her house in the Ogle County community of Rochelle is gone. Insulation that once kept her home warm blows in the limbs of trees. The mangled support beam that kept her house upright is a twisted piece of metal on the basement floor, surrounded by debris.
"This is my entire house," she says, while giving a tour of the destruction.
She had five dogs when the tornado ravaged her home; two died. Despite that sad circumstance, Dickow was mostly upbeat about the future.
"It's just a house. We'll rebuild," she said.
Dickow was in good company, anyway. The man sworn to serve and protect Ogle County, Sheriff Brian VanVickle, also lost his home.
Two women in the nearby community of Fairdale died.
