Tayler Murphy and her mother were at work at the Elkhorn Logan Valley Public Health Department in Wisner on the night of June 16.

That same night, one of a pair of twin tornadoes rated at EF4 struck Pilger and everything in its path.

Murphy is a senior at Wayne State College and has a younger sister who’s just starting out at Wayne, as well as a younger brother who’s getting his first taste of education in kindergarten. Murphy and her siblings lived in Pilger, a small town 17 miles from Wayne with a population around 300.

Pilger was in the shape of a square and the tornado cut across diagonally, doing damage to approximately 75 percent of the area including Murphy’s home.

“My sister’s ex-boyfriend called us and told us our house was gone,” Murphy said.

“He called and told us he was standing there looking at our basement.”

The house, according to Murphy, was a 3-bedroom home at an approximate market value of $35,000.

President Obama declared the tornadoes a natural disaster and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) reimbursed agencies that helped in the recovery efforts. One of those agencies was the Health Department where Murphy and her mother work.

“We did tetanus shots for anybody who wasn’t updated on their tetanus, so we’d get reimbursed for any shots that we did,” she said.

But still the damage was done. “I’ve heard it’ll take millions of dollars to put it all back,” Murphy said.

Murphy was in her storm shelter during the tornado and was looking at the radar when it happened. “We were looking on the radar, and the tornado didn’t even look like it hit Pilger. It looked like Pilger was just on the side of it,” Murphy said.

“I didn’t think based on the angles that the tornadoes would hit Pilger,” witness Justin Aaberg said.

Aaberg’s mother was working at the Pilger farmer’s Co-Op when the tornado struck. Aaberg called his mother to ask if the tornado had hit Pilger. When she told him that it had, Aaberg said, “my heart just sunk, because I know several people down there, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, I hope none of them are dead.’”

Murphy’s family have relocated to Wisner, and Murphy currently lives in an off-campus house. But at one point in the summer of 2014, she and her family were left with absolutely nothing.

The damage done by the tornadoes that occurred in the summer was measurable on a monetary scale but immeasurable on a human scale.