FAYETTE—Clair Louis Dorius was going to the Fayette Post Office when a whirlwind came down right upon the post office.
The whirlwind “sucked the door right out of the frame,” Dorius said. The door would have hit Dorius, except the whirlwind spun Dorius out of the way of the door.
“[The whirlwind] threw me to the side,” Dorius said. “If it hadn’t moved me, I would have been killed by the door. … [The whirlwind] was taking me and the door at the same time, but luckily, I got moved.”
Dorius recalled that in 1993, Mayfield resident Thomas Yardley, a top dairyman in Utah, died after being struck by a strong whirlwind and getting hit by big tree branches.
He also thought about fellow Vietnam veterans and friends Justen Mellor, Roland Christensen and Lamar Bartholomew. Dorius believes they were all “saved” given that 58,000 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the Vietnam War.
“We should all plan to be happy, enjoy life each day before end of everyone’s scheduled life time arrives,” Dorius texted.
“I told people they should enjoy every day,” Dorius said. “You don’t know how long you have left. … Anything can happen.”
The doorway of the Fayette Post Office after a whirlwind sucked out the door.
