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Family left homeless after tornado

Posted at 8:12 PM, Jan 11, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-11 20:12:49-05

CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- Vickie Pauly spent part of the day talking with police and school principals about the storm that's left her home boarded up with someone else's van sitting in the front yard.

Her daughter goes to Gulf Middle, where the principal is offering people temporary housing.

"I'm homeless, ya know we're going from hotels and we needed two rooms and we couldn't get but one room because it was filled up and stuff." She knows her family will have somewhere to go. But Pauly says she didn't really know where to go when the storm blew through her home. "I didn't know which way to go, I just didn't know because it's dark, I didn't know which way to go. When it started coming through I just got right here, right here and I balled up down here and I could feel all this debris blowing around me."

She wasn't the only one inside. "My father in law was sitting in his chair," Pauly said. I just slid down in my chair and covered my head with my hands and 15 seconds it was over," said Harry Pauly. In what felt like 15 seconds the home suffered damages that will take months to repair. "Windows started to hit and it sounded like a bomb hit," Harry added. 

It took Vickie some time to come to grips with her new reality. But she tells Four in Your Corner her faith has reminded her of what's most important. "I'm just glad to be alive. Me and my father in law are ok and my kids were safe that night," Vickie says.