Shortwavers follow us to make sure you never miss an episode. New episodes of Shortwave drop every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Hey, Shortwavers, Emily Kwong here with reporter Pauline Bartholone. Hi, Pauline. Hey, Emily, good to be here.

So today's episode starts with a story that begins about 15 years ago.

Right, so we're going to a city in southwestern Missouri, a small city called Joplin,

where a woman named Nanda Nunnally lived with her husband and daughter.

And on one evening, back in May 2011, the city's tornado sirens went off.

Nanda went to the front door to see what was going on.

You could see what looked like a wall of rain or something. And it took a second to like understand, that's a tornado. That's the tornado.

So Nanda and her husband run to a bedroom closet and they crouched down with their tiny dog.

And within seconds, the tornado hits. It was like standing in between two rail lines with trains going by you.

And it's like that you can't hear anything.

And the suction was like pulling your eardrums out.

Wow, that sounds terrifying.

And Nanda wasn't sure she was going to make it.

She held onto her husband and parts of the roof ripped off.

She saw the sky above them and she started praying.

Thinking in my head, if I'm dying, is this going to hurt?

Dear God, please don't let it hurt.

But then to her surprise, she had a thought about an acquaintance from childhood, someone

she barely knew.

When you truly think you're going to die, it's really strange, the things that come into your head.

...