DURANT — Glinting like shards of falling glass, the sheets of rain seemed to glow beneath a nearby streetlight on North 11th Avenue, the crackle and hum of thunder and falling raindrops a mere whisper in the wake of the storm’s demolition.

Trapped beneath the debris of the collapsed ceiling and the heavy boughs of a fallen tree that pinned him to the living room floor, Duane Krebs took a shallow breath, but the weight of the tree seemed to press closer, pushing his back toward his chest.

He called out to his wife Denise, who was trapped into a fetal position beside a love sofa with the tree pressing into her hip. With the little air left in his lungs, he told his wife, “I’m not going to make it if they don’t get here soon.”

Waves of crushing pain spasmed through his body. After several minutes, Denise, suddenly panicked, cried out to her husband, “Are you okay?!”

Before he could respond, Duane felt his heavy eyes close, and he blacked out.

Survivors of a microburst, or a sudden downdraft of high winds, that descended upon a slew of Durant businesses and homes Wednesday morning at speeds of 60 miles per hour, the Krebs described the terrifying experience when the winds caused a tree to topple onto their home and pin them to the floor.

When it happened, terrifying as it was, it wasn’t entirely unexpected.

Duane said a few days ago, he and his wife were in the backyard looking at the large tree that loomed over their home, its webbed branches an expansive canvas of shade. It was a good shade tree, but it worried him. Gesturing to the tree, he told his wife, “That tree is going to fall on the house one day.”

They said they had hoped to be moved out and gone before such a thing could happen. They didn’t anticipate that the tree would fall less than a week later.

THE NIGHT OF THE STORM

Around 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Denise said she woke to the sound of her dog whimpering. Outside the bedroom window, the wind rustled, and the smell of ozone permeated the room with the threat of an impending storm.

The dog whined again, and Denise crawled out of bed to comfort her, leading the dog to the living room, so its plaintive mewls wouldn’t wake Duane.

“She knew something bad was fixing to happen,” Denise said, shaking her head as she described the experience.

Suddenly, without warning, the wind’s gentle murmurs became replaced with a cacophony of low-pitched, rattled cries: boom-boom-boom.

“It sounded just like they say on TV. It sounded like a train. I thought there was a locomotive coming through the house, and people say it wasn’t a tornado, but I heard a locomotive train, so in my mind it was a tornado,” Denise said. “And if you could see the size of this tree. I don’t think winds alone could have pulled this thing straight up. In my opinion, it was probably one of the largest trees in Durant.”

Hearing the succession of the microburst, Denise cried out, “Duane!” She heard his feet in the hallway as he ran toward her, then she heard the squeals and pops of cracking wood.

“I told her to get in the bathroom and get in the bathtub, but there wasn’t enough time,” Duane said.

Curling into a fetal position beside the love sofa in the living room, Denise grabbed a pillow from the sofa to place over her head when she saw the dog run to the corner of the room. Before her arm could lift the pillow over her head, the ceiling collapsed and the tree slammed her body to the floor, pinning the pillow to her waist. Several feet away, Duane lay on the floor where large pieces of his house and the weight of the tree slammed his body to the ground. He said he tried to push the tree off his back, but the weight immobilized him. Then he realized he could barely breathe.

Denise described the horror of that moment. “I lay there thinking, ‘No one’s going to know [about us] until the neighbors wake up and go to work and see the tree, and [Duane] is saying, ‘There is no way I’m going to make it until daylight.’”

Denise was in better shape than her husband. The love sofa had broken some of the tree’s fall and shielded her from much of the debris. Although a plank blocked her path, she said she could have wriggled her way out with only a few bloody scratches. But she refused because she feared if she did the pressure of the tree would slip down further on her husband.

“I gave everything I had trying to get some of the weight off him,” Denise said, choking up. “I’m hurting muscles I didn’t even know I had. I’m down there trying to relieve some of the pressure off of him, so he didn’t die, but I wasn’t strong enough [to lift the tree].”

Flashlights darted near Denise’s periphery, she said. The sound of the crash had woken her neighbor’s, and when they spotted her toward the front of the house beneath the tree, they began to attempt to pull her out.

“I told them, ‘No, let the professionals do it because if something shifts, we’ll both be crushed,” Denise said.

Denise said the neighbors called 911, but were initially put on hold because of the influx of calls. The fire department and EMTs arrived 30 minutes later.

The crews cut through the wood and debris and 45 minutes later Denise was pulled out. Immediately, she heard the bellow of pain from her husband as the tree crushed him further into the floor.

Two hours of diligent, precise cuts, so as not to harm Duane, the firefighter’s woke Duane with a spotlight shining on his face. He said he had expected to see the wall, but there was no wall. The tree had destroyed everything in the house, but a shelf in the bedroom. His eyes focused, and he saw his neighbor’s home and realized he was outside. Then he felt the torrents of pouring rain, battering his face and body with water that created a pool beside him.

“I was a little goofy when they got me out,” Duane said.

“Part of it was probably from lack of oxygen, and the other part was probably embarrassment because he sleeps in the buff,” Denise said with a smile.

“Yeah, but they covered me up fast though,” Duane said. “I want to say I didn’t think I was going to make it. I’m very proud of everyone who came out and helped us: the EMTs and firefighters and our neighbors — they were great.”

The Krebs were both taken to the hospital to receive treatment. Although Denise had already been released, Duane was still in the hospital at the time of the interview, recovering from blunt force trauma with abrasions on his head and back. Thursday afternoon, Duane was released from the hospital.

During the interview with the Democrat, he said although he felt sore, he was ready to go home.

But Denise quietly reminded him they no longer have a home to go to. The Krebs’ home has been condemned, and the home, along with its contents, which are mostly destroyed, will be demolished.

“We have nothing now,” Denise said, shaking her head. She teared up when she described the acts of kindness she and her husband had received, such as a church member who retrieved her heart and blood pressure medicine from the house and her neighbors who saved her dog, who has been the Krebs beloved pet for 15 years.

“She’s like a child to us because I couldn’t have children biologically,” Denise said. Her tired face curved into a teary smile. “But the neighbors got her out, and she’s fine.”