James Arthur Vineyards: Edelweiss and The Tornado

On the afternoon of May 20, 2013, an EF5 tornado, with peak winds estimated at 210 miles per hour (340 km/h), struck Moore, Oklahoma, and adjacent areas, killing 23 people (and an additional person indirectly), and injuring 377 others. The tornado was part of a larger weather system that had produced several other tornadoes over the previous two days. The tornado touched down west of Newcastle at 2:56 p.m. CDT (19:56 UTC), staying on the ground for 39 minutes over a 17-mile (27 km) path, crossing through a heavily populated section of Moore. The tornado was 1.3 miles (2.1 km) wide at its peak. Despite the tornado following a roughly similar track to the even deadlier 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado, very few homes and neither of the stricken schools had purpose-built storm shelters. Credits: Wikipedia

Shortly after this tragedy, we received a Facebook message from Kendra Voss of Morse Bluff, Nebraska. Here's the unbelievable story she shared:

This past Christmas, I brought a bottle of your wine down to my brother's home in Moore, OK. Unfortunately, we never got around to drinking it. His home was destroyed in the May 20, 2013 tornado (he, his wife, and my nephew are just fine). We found the wine on our first day of digging through their rubble, and it brought us a little joy to know it survived an F5 tornado. We'll save it for when our family is together again under better circumstances. Thought you'd like to know!