WASHINGTON TERRACE, Utah — The Thursday morning started out like any other. Kelly Mayo left her little brick home on the corner and went to her job at an assisted living facility.
But that Thursday afternoon was unlike any other. Around 3:30 p.m. a rare tornado ripped through Washington Terrace, Utah. It knocked the power out at Mayo’s work. She was so busy tending to the residents that she didn’t check her phone for a while.
When things finally calmed down, Mayo got a minute to herself. She pulled out her phone to find 45 messages. And when she got home, she saw it for herself: That little brick home she and her daughter had bought 15 years ago was in shambles.
“I just started crying,” Mayo recalled. “It literally looked like one of the biggest tornadoes that you’d see in Kansas or something. Houses were gone and trees were gone, windows were shattered, fences were gone, sheds were in neighbors’ yards. It was crazy. It looked like a jungle. My backyard literally looked like a jungle.”
The tornado that touched down on Sept. 22, 2016, uprooted a large walnut tree in Mayo’s yard. She couldn’t even get into her yard because of all the scattered tree limbs. The wrecked root systems damaged the plumbing and led to Mayo’s basement flooding, which led to other issues like mold.
“It changed the way we had to live,” Mayo said. “We were constantly trying to figure out how to stop the flooding in the basement. … It was just devastating to see how much damage it had caused.”
Last August, HGTV’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” destroyed Mayo’s little brick home for good. In its place, the show designed and built a 4-bed, 3.5-bath, French country-inspired home.
It took them just a week.
Now, HGTV will display that home on a new episode of “Extreme Makeover” that airs Sunday, March 15.
Mayo loved the brick home that she shared with her daughter and granddaughter. Sure, kitchen space was tight and it only had one “little bitty bathroom,” but compared to the apartment she lived in before, it felt like a mansion.
During the 15 years she lived in that home, she opened her doors to anyone in need — at one point, she had 13 people staying there.
But then the tornado hit.
“Up until that moment, it was pretty good living,” Mayo said. “Even though sometimes it was a little tight.”
Mayo can vividly remember the devastating scene in her neighborhood after coming home from work that Thursday night. But even more than that, she remembers all of the neighbors who came together to help each other. She said around 50 people worked to clear out her backyard.
That same community joined HGTV and Ogden general contractor Wadman Corporation in building her brand new house.
“My heart goes out to each and every one of them in appreciation for everything they did for my family,” Mayo said. “Just wait until you see it on TV. It is the most beautiful home.”
Mayo laughs because when she saw her new home for the first time, she was most excited about having 3.5 bathrooms. But she also loves the spacious windows that let in natural light, the big table in the center of her kitchen and the fact that she has a laundry room that doesn’t leak.
Oh, and the large wraparound porch? That was her “no. 1 wish.”
“I’m going to be serving up lemonade all summer long,” she said.
The Mayo family received its new home last August. A few months later, Mayo invited family and friends over for a Christmas gathering — something she had never been able to do because of her limited space.
“You go back and you look at the house that you spent 15 years paying for. It was blood, sweat and tears, and it kind of makes you teary-eyed to think about it being gone,” she said. “But you know that you have the best possible dream home ... in its place, sitting there waiting for you to make brand-new memories.”
“Just thinking about it right now I’m grinning ear to ear,” she continued. “It’s just unbelievable that this could happen to somebody like us.”