(CNN) — Call it maternal instinct.
As the monster tornado approached, Terimy Miller put her three sons in a closet in their Moore, Oklahoma, house.
But something didn’t feel right.
“It was just that feeling,” Miller told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin on Wednesday. “I just got to get out of here. I’m not chancing this.”
So she put her three boys — ages 11, 7 and 6 — in the family car.
She was moving so fast that she couldn’t round up the two family dogs, which were somewhere outside.
As they prepared their escape, she and son Jules heard a local weatherman on television advise families in Moore that if they didn’t have a storm shelter, they should abandon the house.
“We got away from the storm,” said son Jules, 7.
Confirmation of the mother’s intuition came when she and her boys returned to the house.
Miller hyperventilated. She cried.
The tornado had annihilated the home.
“We walk up and it’s gone,” Miller said. “I’m like, no, this can’t be happening. Why?
“It’s a war zone,” she said.
Added her son: “The thunderstorm took away all my favorite stuff. It’s gone.”
Miller lost the sentimental photos, yearbooks, and mementos from her days in the Navy. Her memories will now have to suffice, she said.
As for the dogs, they survived, but one of them will lose his right eye, injured by the twister.
Despite the material losses, Miller counts her blessings.
“We’re lucky: I have my children and everything will be OK,” she said.
The family will rebuild the home, she added.
