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A heartbreaking story out of Missouri began when a photograph was taken of 9-year-old Annistyn Rackley who was holding her favorite doll in the bathtub next to her sister.
The photo was texted by the girl’s mother and sent to their Aunt Sandy.
15 minutes later, a storm raged across the state and hit the windowless bathroom where the girls were in their “safe space.”
The tornado splintered the home.
Her surviving sister, 7-year-old Avalinn, told doctors that she “flew around in the tornado.”
9-year-old Annistyn was one of dozens killed across five states. She was only a third-grader who loved swimming, dancing and cheerleading.
First responders found the family dozens of yards away in a field where they were in the mud.
The other family members were injured but survived.
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Hooker called Annistyn Rackley a “special angel,” recalling the girl as outgoing and energetic despite a rare liver condition that required regular doctor’s visits. Hooker teaches gifted students at the same elementary school where Meghan Rackley teaches kindergarten in Caruthersville, which is nestled next to the Mississippi River in what’s known as Missouri’s Bootheel region.
Hooker’s account of what happened to the Rackleys came from talking to law enforcement and first responders who were at the scene after the tornado and found family members in the field. Hooker also said she talked to the girl’s father.
“Their house is splintered,” she told The Associated Press during a telephone interview. “There’s debris strewn forever out in the field, and so they were sucked up into the tornado.”
Tornadoes also roared through both the Missouri and Illinois sides of the St. Louis area, as well as the Memphis, Tennessee, area and parts of Arkansas and Illinois. A candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky, and an Amazon facility in Edwardsville, Illinois, were hit.
West of St. Louis, 84-year-old Ollie Borgmann, described as a sweet and “typical grandmother,” died at a hospital after a tornado on Friday blew the Defiance, Missouri, home she shared with her 84-year-old husband, Vernon, off its foundation.
In Pemiscot County in southeastern Missouri, bordering Arkansas and Kentucky, where the Rackleys live, the sheriff’s office did not immediately return telephone messages Monday seeking comment about the storm that destroyed the Rackleys’ home. Gov. Mike Parson’s office said that about 30,000 Missouri residents initially were without power.
Hooker said that Annistyn Rackley’s family hadn’t yet unpacked from their move Dec. 4 from Caruthersville to their new home along Highway J, just west of the city. She said she talked to the girl’s mother, Meghan Rackley, on Friday afternoon about the possibility of bad storms.
Hooker is the sister of Meghan Rackley’s grandmother, and she said she and Annistyn, or Anni, grew close over the past four years. Annistyn also attended the same elementary school where her mom and Hooker teach.
