Editor’s Note: There are literally hundreds of stories and different accounts of the night an EF-3 tornado struck the south side of Dickinson on July 8, 2009. Five years later, we take a look at three families — two of them next-door neighbors — and what they went through that day and in the tornado’s aftermath.
Jim and Betty Anton were sitting in their living room the night of July 8, 2009, when the sky turned dark seemingly in an instant.
Often, they had discussed where would be the best place to take cover in case the threat of a tornado ever turned real. Their house had a basement, but no place down there seemed perfect.
The Antons had ultimately decided they would either go underneath the staircase connecting the main floor and the basement or crawl beneath their pool table. That night, with only seconds to act, the Antons chose the pool table.
Jim Anton knew they had to move fast when he looked out their front window and saw trees flying by.
“He couldn’t finish the word basement’ fast enough, and we went down and got right under the pool table,” Betty Anton said.
“We slid under there like butter.”
As they laid face down under the pool table, the Antons heard what sounded like a train going through their house. Betty’s glasses flew off her face and hit the basement wall, followed by a crunching sound.
“And it was over with,” she said.
As quickly as the tornado came, it was gone. What meteorologists would later describe as an EF-3 “jumper,” moved east across Dickinson and continued out of town.
When all seemed quiet and safe again, Jim Anton pulled himself out from underneath the pool table and carefully walked upstairs. He didn’t linger there.
“He got right back downstairs, got under the pool table and said, ‘The living room is gone,’” Betty said.
Dustin Monke 