OWASSO, Okla. — Tracy Neeley's face reflects the horror she felt as a ferocious tornado slammed into the Owasso home she shares with her son on April 2.
"No warning at all. We have a shelter in the garage. No way could we have even gotten to it," Neeley said.
Within minutes, like many of their neighbors, part of their roof was gone, and water was flooding into their home.
Nearly four months later, repairs inside are barely underway as Neeley waits for her insurance payout.
"I hear a loud bam and glass shattering," Neeley said, recalling the moment the storm hit. "Me and my son ran into the kitchen where there was glass all over the whole kitchen, and water was coming in everywhere."
Neeley is grateful her contractor immediately tarped and fixed her roof without waiting for payment and got her belongings sent to storage. But now cash-strapped, she remembered a savings account from a previous job that could help with mounting bills.
"They had a mutual fund program where they'd match what you put in, invested, and when the tornado hit my house, I realized I needed to update the beneficiary on that policy," Neeley said.
Using that money would come with a big early withdrawal penalty, but may be necessary as bills pile up. The problem is she doesn't know how to find the account. Her previous employer didn't have her records.
"They gave me the phone numbers for BlackRock, Persia, Hewitt, I mean 20 different phone numbers, and I called everybody and nobody has my policy. So then I called the IRS. They can't find my policy. They told me to call the Department of Labor and the Department of Labor told me that they can't help me unless I have the policy number," Neeley said.
She's hoping to find that information in a file cabinet sent to storage.
Just like finding those documents, repairing her house will take time. Workers have completed most of the exterior work, but the interior work has barely begun. Getting the whole house livable again will take much longer.
Neeley now wants to raise awareness about the importance of knowing where your financial documents are located and how to access policy numbers in the event of a disaster.
Experts we checked with recommend:
- Keeping records in a safe deposit box
- Storing photos of documents with insurance information in a cloud account
- Using a fire and water resistant safe
Neeley also emphasizes the importance of keeping beneficiary information up-to-date, so if the unthinkable happens, that money goes to your survivors instead of being lost.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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