As Jay Wortman tried to navigate his vehicle along Ibex Road through the debris flying in the wind, the dark ominous clouds and the rain and hail, all he could think about was his 13-year-old daughter.

Breanna Wortman was at home alone in their two-story house at 10836 Ibex Road, located northwest of Neosho and south of Iris Road.

Jay couldn’t drive any longer. The storm had become too strong. He had to pull his vehicle into a neighbor’s driveway and duck in a basement of a home.

“I didn’t know them,” he said of the home’s owners. “It was so bad I had to stop a mile down the road from the house. I knew some folks had a basement along the road, and I had my youngest daughter with me. I decided it wasn’t worth jeopardizing her, too. I got as close as I want to be to a tornado. I could not see anything. I couldn’t even see the hood of my truck when I was headed north.”

“After the storm went by, I got (to my house) as quick as I could.”

But when Jay arrived, his 13-year-old daughter, Breanna, was nowhere to be found.

He looked throughout what was left of his home. The two-story home was reduced to one story, with just a part of a wall and beams left of the second floor. The main floor was heavily damaged with walls missing. The yard and field around the home was littered with debris. A toilet was found in the backyard, several yards from the home. CDs, paperwork, furniture and another items from the home were tossed about like feathers by the powerful EF3 tornado, which officials with the National Weather Service said packed winds of more than 160 miles per hour.

Jay looked in the basement of the home where he knew his daughter had sought shelter.

She wasn’t there either.

“I went nuts looking for her,” Wortman said Sunday morning holding back the tears. “A neighbor had come by the house before I got there and took her to their home to safety. I didn’t know that. I couldn’t find her.

“It is a devastating feeling to come over the hill and see that not much of your house is left. Your barn’s gone. Your shop is gone. You know you have a kid home, and then you can’t find her. It was pretty rough.”

When Jay learned his daughter was safe and sound with his neighbor, he said he felt “probably the most joy a person could experience.”

Speaking those words, it was tough for Jay to hold back his emotions as family members and friends worked at the home and in the yard to help start the clean-up process under blue skies and the bright sun of a cool, crisp Sunday morning.

Jay and his wife, Jean, are parents to six children: Kelly, 18, a senior at Neosho High School; Ike, 17; Sidney, 15; Breanna, who was spending Sunday away from the home; Paige, 12; and Jayla 7, who was in the car with Jay as he drove home during the storm.

Jay said he had some livestock that were injured during the storm and had to be put down, including horses. The house is a total loss, plus the other buildings on the property.

“But my whole family is alive and well,” he said. “And, well, we will start again. That is not even an issue.”