Friday night brought an outbreak of tornadoes that stretched across as many as eight states. Several towns across the South and Midwest are in ruins and many families are now having to plan funerals instead of joyous holiday celebrations. But amid all the tragedy, there are points of light. As often happens in the wake of natural disasters, we are also learning the heroic stories of neighbors helping neighbors.

As the sirens wailed in Monette, Arkansas, the staff of Monette Manor nursing home acted quickly and moved many of the elderly residents into the hallway by the nurse’s station. Then, as she told The Washington Post, Barbara Richards, an employee of the facility, saw the monster tornado outside of the glass front doors. “I could see the rotation outside before it got to us,” she told the Post.

Richards didn’t hesitate. She and her colleagues barricaded the doors with a mattress and alerted their residents to protect their heads with their pillows. “Then it hit and blew the glass out of the windows in the facility… You could see the rotation inside the building.”

Monette Manor took a direct hit from the tornado that was a part of the deadly series that later struck in at least half a dozen more states. Because of Richards and her coworkers, many lives were saved that night.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson said on CNN that it was nothing short of a miracle.

“It was like Heaven sucked up the roof and all the contents of it. And it’s just a miracle with 67 residents, that we only lost one there and that’s because of the heroic efforts of the staff.”

Hutchinson also gave credit to the efforts previously made to establish warning systems throughout the state. “And also, the fact that we had 20 minutes of warning. The siren went off, alerting the citizens that a tornado was in the vicinity and because of that they were able to get the residents in the hallway. So, preparation makes a big difference. The investments in those early warning systems, that saved a lot of lives in this instance,” he said.

We know that the same wasn’t the case for many of the places struck later that night. If you would like to help the victims of these storms, you can find a list of vetted organizations already hard at work in impacted areas here.

Our prayers continue to be with all our neighbors who are suffering after this terrible extreme weather event.