ROSSVILLE
(KSNT) – Thursday’s thunderstorms and tornadoes caused a lot of damage
throughout the state.
And for those
who were caught in the thick of it, it could have been worse.
A Rossville man
has been deemed a hero for his quick action by providing shelter.
Alan Jeffers
says don’t call him special, he says he was just doing what was right.
High winds up
to 70 miles per hour and brief tornado blew through Rossville and Silver Lake
along Highway 24 Thursday afternoon.
With some quick
thinking, Jeffers took action.
“When the
sirens went off, we just kept the doors open for all our customers that was
traveling,” said Jeffers.
Jeffers is the
manager at the Casey’s General Convenience Store right off of Highway 24 in
Rossville. During the storm he provided shelter for about 60 people, including
a bus full of children, and a family from Missouri.
That family was
Corey Sloan’s wife, his mother-in-law, his daughter and his two grand-children,
ages 8 and 3.
“The last words
I said to my wife was, ‘Get out of the vehicle’. I could hear the tornado
sirens in the background,” said Sloan. “She told my granddaughter to run, and
then the phone went dead. My entire life was in that Casey’s in Rossville,
Kansas yesterday.”
During that
tornado watch, Jeffers brought some of the children and adults to the cooler
for shelter. Others found safety in the gas stations bathrooms, and storage
rooms.
“It is pretty
important to me to know that my family was taken care of by complete
strangers,” Sloan says.
“I had no
problem doing it. It just shows comfort to other people knowing that if their
family is out on the road that they can go to a Casey’s or at least here…They
can come and take shelter here,” says Jeffers.
Sloan say’s he
personally thanked Jeffers for protecting his family. He even called the
Casey’s General Store headquarters to tell them about his new found hero.
You can view KSNT video about Jeffers at: http://ksnt.com/2016/05/27/small-town-hero-rossville-man-takes-action-during-severe-storms/
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