COVENTRY TOWNSHIP, Ohio–Tricia Ortscheid waits for answers.
She has not heard from her aunt, 67-year-old Faith Dunn, who lives in the direct path of the EF-5 tornado that swept through Joplin.
“Like I’ll look at the Internet and see the pictures, and I’ll start crying. I have to quit looking at it,” said Tricia, who lives in Coventry Township. “I just think Faith would be really scared, and that’s what upsets me.”
Faith lives just one block from St. John’s Regional Medical Center, which took a direct hit from the twister. Faith’s apartment complex is believed to be leveled.
“I just hope that she’s not suffering and that she wasn’t…like if she had to go, just to go quick and not be laying under a pile of something,” Tricia said.
Faith is among the 1,500 people reportedly missing in the area. As the days go by, Tricia said she doesn’t want to give up hope.
“She probably couldn’t get out,” Tricia said. “I mean, we still have a little bit of hope, but I don’t know. I don’t think it looks good.”
As the death toll climbs above 125, Tricia hopes to hear the familiar voice of the woman who plays the organ at church and always makes her laugh.
“Every time I look at this picture, I laugh so hard,” Tricia said, pointing to a picture of her aunt on vacation at Silver Dollar City in Missouri. “She is so funny.
“She had a good life. You see some kids that die, and it’s just like, ‘they didn’t live.’ and she did live.”
While waiting for word on her aunt Faith, Tricia plans to keep hers in the process.
“Just makes me realize how important family is,” Tricia said. “Friends come and go, but family is always there.”