COLUMBUS, Ohio — Six months after an EF3 tornado tore through the Indian Lake area, one family in Lakeview is continuing their long road to recovery.
The tornado completely destroyed the Hoffman family’s home in March, and they have since decided to rebuild their home and their lives from the ground up.
When the tornado hit their home, Asia, her husband, Seth, and their two daughters were home at the time. Without a basement to escape to, they rushed into their bathroom and braced for impact.
Fortunately, they all survived.
"I still shake my head and just can't believe it,” Seth said.
"There's plenty of times I just come out here and sit and just, you know, look at everything, and kind of process and reflect back on everything,” Asia said.
The Hoffman family lost nearly everything when the tornado hit.
"Most of everything that we have is up in the totes up there, that's left,” Asia said.
Asia said Seth was determined to build them a new home on their land.
"This is home, I mean he's been here his whole life. It was his dad's and the kids didn't want to leave,” Asia said.
"Just from the way I was raised, I suppose, if something needed done you did it, and that's just kinda where I'm at,” Seth said.
It’s a big undertaking, but Asia said they’re figuring it out as they go along.
"I started drawing it up and engineering it and planning out where all the bathrooms and kitchen and plumbing was gonna be,” Seth said.
There’s one thing the Hoffmans made sure to make a priority this time around.
"We needed to have a place to go if something ever happened again,” Asia said.
They decided on building a storm shelter inside their home and plan to follow the FEMA design.
Their kids, Ally and Aubrey, have also come a long way since the trauma they experienced in March.
"When I think about it, my brain tries to tell me that it’s not real and it was just a dream. But I know it wasn't,” Aubrey said.
"It almost feels like a realistic dream. Like you remember it but you don't feel like you've been through it,” Ally said.
The rebuild of their home is giving them all something to look forward to. While the exterior is near finished, the interior is just getting underway, as they work to get back to normal as much as possible.
"We're still living day to day and we're doing soccer and we're coaching both their teams, so it’s just nice to get back to life the way it was just a little bit,” Asia said.
Looking back on all they’ve been through, they said there’s only one word to describe it: lucky.
"How it took everything it did but didn't take them... for sure… We're definitely lucky,” Seth said.
"We are. We're stronger than the storm,” Asia said.