Tornado survivor tells her story

Whitney Mosley says the weight of what she experienced is only now starting to hit her. Living in the community of Pilgrim's Rest, she and her family found themselves facing a tornado on Monday morning.

"Yesterday we were just in survival mode. All day was just dreamlike because of the shock of it all," said Mosley, in an interview on Good Day Alabama. "Today, it is starting to hit."

Mosley is relying on her faith to see her through the turbulent times. From hearing her story, it is easy to see why.

"On Monday morning around 4:00 a.m., my father called my cell phone. It was set to vibrate, but I heard it and answered," said Mosley.

Whitney Mosley's father warned her get her children, a 10-month-old and a 2-year-old, and to get to cover. Her husband retrieved the kids and they made it to the basement when the power went out. As the family sat on the couch in the basement, an uneasy feeling crept over them.

"We both had a gut feeling about it not being right, like it was not just going to pass over us as it had always done before," said Mosley.

The family tried to make it to the stairs as the brunt of the storm hit. They laid down near a wall as Mosley's husband tried to shield his family from debris by using his own body. Mosley prayed for protection while the tornado passed.

"It felt like forever, but it probably left as soon as it had come," said Mosley.

Coming out of their home, which lost almost its entire side wall, they found that all the neighbors to the left of their home still had standing residences. To the right, all the homes were destroyed. In their driveway, they found a devotion page that gave them some comfort in coming through the ordeal; it read "In our weakness, He is strong." It is a stark reminder of faith for a family that would have seen disaster if they had not heard the buzz of a cell phone set to vibrate.

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