Photo: Manny Carabel/Getty Images
Erin Napieris opening up about a scary memory she shared with her family after a tornado struck their town of Laurel, Miss in 2019.
While discussing her new book,Heirloom Roomson Southern Living’sBiscuits and Jampodcast, Erin, 38, revealed what it was like to have to take cover from the natural disaster with her husbandBen, 40, and their daughter Helen, 5. Their other daughter Mae, 2, was not born yet.
On what started out as a normal night in December, one week before Christmas, theHome Towndesigner was getting ready to have Ben’s younger brother and his wife over for dinner, when she heard an alarm sound.
“Helen was almost two, and the tornado siren started going off. We knew bad weather was coming,” Erin says. “I said we’ll go get in the closet under the stairs, and as soon as we got in and closed the door we could feel the house move. It felt alive in a way that really scared me.”
While she remembers hearing the house “creak and pop,” she adds that it also felt “sturdy” against the wind. “It felt like, okay it’s gonna do its job, it’s gonna protect us, it’s gonna shelter us. We could hear glass breaking but we knew that the house was holding steady.”
Erin Napier’s husband Ben playing with their daughter.Erin Napier/ Instagram
Once it was safe to come out, Erin says her family “ran in” to the other rooms to see the damage.
While the whole experience was “scary” and a “close call,” she says that it was especially heartbreaking to see the impact that the tornado had on her hometown.
“It was sad to see this historic neighborhood with so many old houses losing their chimneys, but it could have been worse,” Erin adds.
Cover of Erin Napier’s new book Heirloom Rooms.Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
source: people.com
