DeKALB | NIU students from Ottawa were shocked and scared to hear that tornadoes had touched down in their hometown Tuesday, causing extreme damage and two deaths.

Senior journalism major Micaela McGinley found out about the tornadoes in her hometown right after they touched down, while DeKalb was also under a tornado watch.

McGinley said she was walking out of class around 4:50 p.m. Tuesday when she got a text saying that a severe tornado had hit Naplate, a small town connected to Ottawa.

“I’m walking back as hail is like, pelting me in the face, trying to text my mom, and I was like, ‘Did a tornado hit Ottawa?’” McGinley said. “It took forever for her to respond to me, and I was like, freaking out.”

Finally her mom responded to her, confirming that a tornado hit Ottawa but that McGinley’s family was okay.

McGinley said she was in shock and that it was surreal to hear what was happening.

Many people in Ottawa thought they would never have a tornado hit their town because they are situated in a valley.

“We’re prepared for anything else they want to throw at us, but not a tornado,” McGinley said. “So this was like, really surprising … We were not prepared. But for how unprepared we were, I think people are on it.”

Leigha Pastorik, senior child development major, is also from Ottawa. Pastorik, McGinley’s roommate, said that typically when tornado sirens go off, people in Ottawa don’t even go into their basements for shelter because they think tornadoes won’t happen. In the future, Pastorik said she believes people in Ottawa and Naplate will take tornadoes more seriously.

Pastorik’s mom works in Naplate at a factory for Pilkington, a company that makes glass. Pastorik said the factory is wiped out and has to go through a lot of reconstruction.

Senior biology major Jocelyn Schueler described the damage to the town as total chaos.

Schueler has lived in the Ottawa community her entire life. She said her family’s house sustained minimal damage. However, a house in Naplate that her family used to live in when Schueler was a child was destroyed, which she said was weird for her to see.

In addition to the damage that the storm caused to the towns, at least 14 people were injured and two Ottawa residents died during the storm. Wayne Tuntland was outside with his son Toby Johnson and son-in-law David Johnson when a tree fell on them. Toby sustained injuries in the incident but survived. David, 31, and Tuntland, 76, died due to injuries.

The community pulled together to clean up the wreckage and to help each other out. A gym in Ottawa Township High School was turned into a shelter for people who had lost their homes; churches had opened their doors and provided food for victims; and local restaurants donated food.

“It’s just incredible how much people have stepped up,” Schueler said. “They’ve actually had to turn away volunteers because there’s so many people flooding the area to help, [and] with the power lines down, it just wasn’t safe to have people [out] yet. So they had to turn away help.”

Many donation collection efforts have been started, many of which can be found on the Ottawa Naplate Tornado Relief Facebook page.

McGinley said on Wednesday that after the storm, it was strange to walk through campus, where people weren’t feeling the way she was. Some people didn’t even know about the tornadoes in Naplate and Ottawa.

“For as small as Ottawa is, I think there’s a really large community [of Ottawans] at NIU that people don’t realize [is here],” McGinley said. “So I think people just have to be aware of that [during] like, the next few weeks.”