--- title: 75-Year-Old Woman Survives Tornado by Sheltering in Bathtub description: A Texas tornado picked the woman up—and dropped her off, uninjured, a distance away from the house. canonical: https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-25T20:49:54.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:40:28.011Z og:title: 75-Year-Old Woman Rides Tornado in Her Tub, Survives og:description: It's a story fit for Dorothy. og:url: https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 75-Year-Old Woman Rides Tornado in Her Tub, Survives twitter:description: It's a story fit for Dorothy. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # 75-Year-Old Woman Rides Through Tornado in a Tub for the Ultimate Survival Story  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jan 25, 2017 8:49 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jan 25, 2017 8:49 PM UTC East Texas resident Charlesetta Williams has quite a tale of survival to share after a harrowing extreme-weather experience. The 75-year-old woman found herself directly in the path of a severe tornado earlier this week, one of multiple to hit the region with peak wind speeds as high as 130 miles per hour, as local news [KSLA reports](http://www.ksla.com/story/34328012/a-75-year-old-took-a-bathtub-ride-to-survival-during-etx-tornado). According to the reports made by the storm damage survey team, the tornado touched down in Marion County, Texas and took the roof off the house she was in. “A woman inside took shelter in a bathtub,” the report notes. “The tornado lifted the tub out of the home and deposited it in the woods with the woman still in the tub.” Amazingly, she was uninjured despite the wild journey. It sounds like a story fit for Dorothy—but lucky for her, this one ended with Williams waking up in Texas, not all the way out in mythical Oz. Others in tornado paths have not been so lucky. Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas were all ravaged by an intense storm system birthing more than two dozen twisters over the weekend and claiming at least 20 lives, as [The Weather Channel reports.](https://weather.com/news/news/deadly-severe-storms-tornadoes-south-state-by-state-impacts) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/"},"headline":"75-Year-Old Woman Rides Through Tornado in a Tub for the Ultimate Survival Story","datePublished":"2017-01-25T20:49:54.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:40:28.011Z","description":"Toto, we're still in Texas.","url":"https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Weird News","Natural Disasters"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4649105/bathtub-tornado-survival/","name":"75-Year-Old Woman Rides Through Tornado in a Tub for the Ultimate Survival Story"}}]}] ```