A teen, who survived a devastating EF5 tornado in Joplin, Missouri, in 2011, is speaking out all these years later. The devastating storm killed 160 and injured more than 1,000. The devastation was so severe that then-17-year-old Cecil Cornish thought the world was ending.
Speaking with People, Cornish is gay and thought God was punishing him through the Rapture. Cornish appears in the new Netflix documentary, The Twister: Caught in the Storm. At the time, he was working at a frozen yogurt store when the tornado hit the town. At the time, he thought, "If this is going to be the end of the world, I don't want to stay around for what's going to happen.' "
Somehow, Cornish survived the tornado. He found nothing left of Joplin and thought the world had been destroyed. He was so happy to find that his mom and dad had survived the tornado. Following the documentary, he said his story connected with other LGBTQ teens.
Teen Survives Tornado
"[They were] coming out to me, or they said that they watched my special on Netflix and they came out to their family, which is pretty insane," Cornish said. "It's great, but it's also been a little overwhelming for sure."
"I think in America we don't see a lot of men be intimate or be emotional," he explains. "And I think that that's resonated with men and women and queer people in general, and they like to have kind of a role model ... And I'm glad that could be me."
Cornish was also able to talk about his religion and how that's impacted his life beyond just the tornado and the storm.
He said, "I love that I was able to talk about being rejected from the church, because that's a very shared experience that people have throughout America. I think that's resonating with a lot of people. And that's way beyond the storm ... people that are queer can feel more comfortable being themselves, especially in [today's] current climate."
