The tornado that ripped through Joplin, Mo., on Sunday evoked bitter memories in Omaha, where an F4 twister destroyed apartments, an elementary school and a Nebraska Furniture Mart building in 1975.
“It looked like somebody came through in a bomber and just bombed the hell out of the store,” the retailer’s executive VP Bob Batt told a local TV news station yesterday.
According to the report by KETV, about a hundred customers and staffers survived the devastation by hiding in a company fallout shelter that dated back to the Cold War.
The furniture, appliance and CE dealer since rebuilt the store with a dozen tornado safe rooms, and also implemented safety training for floods and fires.
“You don’t want to figure out what you’re going to do after it hits,” Batt said.