Rochester military family temporarily displaced after Oklahoma EF3 tornado

ROCHESTER, Minn. (KTTC) – Disaster has struck for two Rochester natives and their family living further south. They and their young sons are now temporarily displaced after an EF3 tornado tore through their Oklahoma City neighborhood. Ryan and Danielle Bertsch are John Marshall High School graduates who recall what happened that night along with the aftermath.

"Was a heck of a lot stronger a couple of blocks that way," Bertsch said as he pointed to a road perpendicular to his street. "I mean, there's pass of three houses in a row that are just gone."

At first, Danielle did not think of much the thunderstorms rolling through her neighborhood, but around 1 a.m. on November 3, conditions quickly changed.

"It was storming out, but nothing like real crazy like real crazy it was just your average thunderstorm," she said. "Winds started getting real, real loud and crazy; then the thunder got louder, and the lightning got more, more frequent."

At the time, Danielle was lying in bed with her two sons when the storms overhead woke up their oldest from his sleep. Before she knew it, cracks in the ceiling started to appear. She eventually moved with the kids from her bedroom closet and then into the hallway when it was safer.

"It just sounded like a really loud whip and then the roof above us started cracking," she said. "Me and my oldest son stepped on glass, and you can just hear the wind in the kitchen and the glass break in."

Jessica then put placed her kids and pets in the cellar as a precaution as to what could come next. She said the sirens came on after the tornado passed through. However, during the storm, she was on the phone with her husband, Ryan. He saw that his family was in a tornado warning as he was actively deployed in Europe with the Air Force. He said his wife kept repeating the same three words.

"'I need help, I need help,' in this panicked voice, like 20 times over, and I'm like, 'what is going on,?'" he explained. "It was on the ground, confirmed, and I'm like you just got hit with a tornado, if you're saying the roof is missing."

Ryan was home within about two days to be with his family. The greatest challenge, he said, was finding temporary housing for the family of four and their three pets. Originally, they settled in a local hotel.

"I'd get the same thing, but we just we just rented to somebody, that's in your same situation," he said. "I mean we were all in a king bed for three, four, five days; something like that."

Danielle says it will be a while before her family and neighborhood experiences normalcy again and to be prepared when severe weather strikes.

"The tornado has definitely brought the neighbors closer to one another and watch out for each other even more," she said. "It's going to take a while just when you come down the main road to have it feel normal again and not see tornado damage or tornado marks. You'll always have that little flashback driving into the neighborhood."

The Bertsch family expects to be in temporary housing for at least the next six months and are waiting to confirm if they can either rebuild or renovate their home. A GoFundMe has been established to help the family with expenses and damages. You can donate by clicking here .