told local news station KFOR.<\/a><\/p>\nShe was heartbreakingly sure their 3-year-old pet goats, Percy and Penny, would never survive the violent twister.<\/p>\n
Mary Sloat shows Penny photos of her mother \u2014 who the family also raised. Courtesy of the Sloat family<\/p>\n
They jumped when a loud crash sounded on the shelter\u2019s steel doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe looked up and saw the door was dented in. We didn\u2019t know it at the time, but the chimney fell on top of the doors, thousands of bricks,\u201d said Sloat.<\/p>\n
When the storm passed, they were still alive \u2014 but unable to escape, trapped beneath mountains of debris.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe called the 911 first responder team on my wife\u2019s phone when it still had a signal and we learned later they arrived about 30 minutes after the tornado passed, but they had no idea where we were or if we were even around,\u201d said Sloat. \u201cThey\u2019d never hear us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rescuers walked and searched, but couldn\u2019t locate the survivors. <\/p>\n
So they waited.<\/p>\n
Then \u2014 just when hope was fading \u2014 a faint sound from above the rubble reached them.<\/p>\n
Adam Sloat relaxes with one of the heroic goats. Courtesy of the Sloat family<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter and I could have sworn that we heard goat noises, and I thought there\u2019s no way,\u201d Sloat said.<\/p>\n
Against all odds, Percy and Penny had survived, and the four-legged heroes stomped, bleated and refused to budge from where the family and friends sat, buried alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe rescuers had no idea where we were but Percy and Penny knew,\u201d laughed Sloat. \u201cThey stood right over us and kept up a steady stream of noise until the emergency people came over and started removing the bricks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sloat family and their neighbors was eventually pulled to safety.<\/p>\n
An easy chair and scattered remnants of their home were all that was left after the tornado hit Enid. Courtesy of the Sloat family<\/p>\n
\u201cWe finally emerged and couldn\u2019t believe our eyes,\u201d said Adam. \u201cEverything was gone, and there were first responders walking around. One firefighter said to me, \u2018We had no idea where you were until we saw your goats.’\u201d<\/p>\n
The twister had ripped roofs off buildings, knocked down power poles and blocked roads in the small town, but fortunately, there were only minor injuries, according to the Garfield County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Weather chaos continued to rip through<\/a> \u201ctornado alley\u201d \u2014 which spans the central plains of the US from Texas into South Dakota \u2014 in the next weeks.<\/p>\nNow, as the Sloats begin the grueling work of rebuilding, they still have something to laugh and wonder about.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn days whenever they\u2019re being ornery and they headbutt me, or they nip at my fingers, I\u2019m going to have to remember this,\u201d said Mary. \u201cI don\u2019t know of anybody else who has a goat story like this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s unbaaaa-lievable. After a powerful tornado barreled through Enid, Okla., on April 23, the Sloat family was trapped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,5723,33565,25313,9600,79,90194,14725,194],"class_list":["post-646826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-firefighters","tag-goats","tag-homeowners","tag-oklahoma","tag-science","tag-shelters","tag-tornadoes","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}