Everything that was important to Curtis Bush was destroyed by winds that screamed past 170 mph.
The father from Mississippi was working miles away when an EF-4 tornado ripped down his Tylertown home on March 15. His wife and 17-year-old son were inside, clinging to life under motorcycle helmets and praying they wouldn’t perish.
As the storm’s tremendous force tore the walls from the foundation of their house, the two were flung violently more than 100 yards.
They had to stay in the hospital for more than a week because they had several fractured bones. One of their cherished dogs was dead next to them.
The fate of their second dog, a sweet, 11-year-old yellow lab named Linus, was a painful mystery, compounding the destruction and their physical anguish.
It would take several days before a ray of hope appeared as a result of the diligent work of drone pilot Jason Miller and the thermal imaging technology developed by his company.
Miller said the destruction in Tylertown was devastating, particularly after the town was hit by two powerful tornadoes in one hour.
His phone rang on the days following the storm. He was asked to provide his knowledge by the Mississippi Animal Project. Miller uses thermal drones to assist reconnect missing dogs with their families. Miller is usually a drone-based cameraman and photographer for TV programs.
He remarked, “There are moments that shake you to your core,” and this was one of them.
Miller immediately packed his thermal drone equipment and drove south from his Mesa, Mississippi, home for two hours.
A reported glimpse of Linus rekindled hope ten days after the storm. Miller was committed to doing everything in his power to get Linus home since time was of the essence.
Miller began a thorough airborne search after realizing how impossible it would be to find a single heat signature in the tornado’s jumbled debris field.
He flew grid patterns over the ruined remnants of the Bush mansion and over the places where Linus had allegedly been observed for more than seven hours, looking for any sign of life.
“A needle in a haystack,” he stated. “Even a broken tree trunk itself gives a signature similar to what I’m looking for in a dog.”
The amazing news finally came after a thorough search: Linus was found alive close to a Dollar General store, some 1,000 yards from the location of his previous residence.
Miller was so happy that he called the family right away in the middle of the night, his voice brimming with excitement. Bush’s heart raced as he hurried to Linus’s place, hoping for a tearful reunion that defied the destruction.
“Ten days and nobody had seen him. So you kind of lose hope,” Bush stated. “The community was constantly searching for him, and then Jason came in and was able to actually find him. It was a blessing.”
After surviving two tornadoes and spending days wandering his devastated landscape, Linus, a living miracle, appeared to be even more confused than his family.
“I was praying I could find this dog and help bring him home and give them some sort of peace back in their life, even though they’ve got years to go before they get back to where they were,” Miller stated.
After the experience, Linus is doing well and is still recovering. Miller urges people to take tornado warnings seriously and emphasizes the catastrophe’s brutal reality.
“You really don’t take it seriously until you see what you see on the ground and how much devastation they can do and how quickly they can change your life in an instant,” he stated.
Linus’s unlikely survival was more than a happy ending in the midst of unfathomable tragedy; it was a bright light of hope guiding the broken Bush family down the difficult road to recovery.
Source: foxweather
