Winston County woman who survived being pulled up by 2014 tornado hopes history won’t repeat itself

LOUISVILLE, Miss. (WCBI)  – For many families in Winston County, Wednesday’s potentially dangerous storms bring back memories of the last time there was a severe weather threat of this magnitude.

In 2014, Madelon Taylor-Flippo was less than one month away from her high school graduation.

Then the EF-4 tornado hit and everything changed.

“It’s coming straight for us,” Taylor-Flippo said, recalling her father’s before he moved them all into the hallway of their Louisville home as the tornado bore down on them.

The tornado devastated the city of Louisville, ripping apart homes and businesses. It also nearly cost Taylor-Flippo her life.

“[My father] just kind of jumped on top of us to protect us and everything,” she said. “And then I just remember I just felt myself just going up, and my mom, she grabbed me.”

Taylor-Flippo says she clung to her mother and dog for dear life for 20 agonizing seconds that felt so much longer.

“The next thing I immediately started praying for was, ‘God, let this be instant,” she remembers somberly.

Then it was over and she was back on the ground. Taylor-Flippo says the next thing she remembers is her father looking out only to see that the tornado had ravaged not only their home but almost every other home in their neighborhood.

“The pressure, I think, that pulled me up was how the back of the house actually just kind of exploded,” she said.

So many years later, Taylor-Flippo says she saw the same warning signs leading up to the latest threat of severe weather and was hoping history would not repeat itself.

“That’s what really scares me,” she said. “It’s just the calmness and how it feels.”

With the threat of tornados looming in 2021, Taylor-Flippo says she had tried to manage the traumatic emotions it brings back by trying to stay off social media and not focus too much on the build-up to the actual storm.

“I’ve always been anxious of weather and losing my home,” Taylor-Flippo said.

Seven years after losing the house she grew up in, the threat of another tornado faces the home she has built with her husband.

Returning to the spot where her house once stood, Taylor-Flippo says that while she feels sadness, she’s also reminded of something else.

“How blessed we were to make it out,” she said.

Madelon says she and her husband Jonathon secured their home and stowed their possessions and planned to ride out the danger in a storm shelter.