Sunday, April 09, 2000

Crisis response: 'I'm the person who saved my family'

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The Tornado: One Year Later

BY WALT SCHAEFER
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        SYMMES TOWNSHIP — Mike Bochnovich wonders if his children will ever get over April 9, 1999.

Then: Suzanne Bochnovich sits outside her ruined home with a friend. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

Now: (From left) Ashley, Michael, Suzanne and Mike Bochnovich and their partially repaired home. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        “I don't think so. Never completely. They are scared to death every time it thunders or lightnings. They go to a safe area ... in the basement. They do not like to be outside (in bad weather). It bothers all of them, it really does,” said Mr. Bochnovich.

        The Bochnovich home on Marlette Drive was destroyed by the twister. Mr. Bochnovich was not there when the storm struck but credited his daughter, Suzanne, 19, a Miami University student, with getting the family to the basement.

        Suzanne, who was home and sleeping with her mother, Susan, woke up to the thunder, roused her mom and then ran to her sister Ashley's room, grabbed her by the hair and shouted to Ashley to get out of bed and into the basement. “I told her I meant business,” said Suzanne.

        Brother Michael, 16, also headed for the basement, Mr. Bochnovich said.

        “In my situation, I still react,” said Suzanne, a freshman at Miami University studying mass communications. “I was the person who woke up. I feel totally responsible for everyone's life in the (college) dorm or house. That's because I'm the person who saved my family. If I did not wake up, my family would be dead. It took 10 seconds to get downstairs. When I hear what I call the bass drum or jet or whatever sounds like a tornado, I have yet to recover. I fear that rumbling, the sucking sound, and I run.”

        Ashley, a student at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, said she'll not forget “coming out of the basement, looking across the street and seeing my neighbor's house totally gone.”

        “I want to thank all of the people we did not even know who were giving us money and gifts,” she said. “My school gave us about $3,000.

        “I really learned that possessions do not mean much. My family and friends are much more important,” she said.

       

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Tornado of '99 archive