Joplin Tornado Survivor: 'I Believed I'd Die'

Ashli Sims, News On 6

JOPLIN, Missouri -- Amid all of the devastation and loss after a tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri Sunday evening, there are some heroic tales of survival.

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"It's all gone. It is," Irene Constantine said. "It's an experience nobody really wants to go through."

An experience she said she didn't think she would survive.

"I firmly believed I'd die when it started," she said. "I thought, ‘there's no way I can get through this.'"

Constantine rode out the storm in her bathtub, while trees were uprooted, homes were smashed to splinters and cars were crumpled like toys all around her.

"Course it sounds just like a freight train, just like they say," she said.

When the deafening roar of the wind finally died down, she heard voices.

"They was hollering for me, and then they climbed in and got me," she said.

Constantine knows she's one of the lucky ones, but the depth of her loss is just now starting to hit her.

"It's just starting to sink in," she said. "I said it looks a lot worse today than it did last night. Whether you was just in shock last night and today you're just really realizing what is here, or not here."

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