TEMPLE, Texas — "Tough as a cheerleader" took on a whole new meaning when a Temple cheer and tumble gym took a direct hit from a tornado on May 22, 2024.
The storm left Extreme Cheer and Tumble completely destroyed. There were kids inside when the storm struck, but there were heroes too.
Now, months later, the families affected gathered at a nearby gym, Pivot, to share their stories of survival and resilience with 6 News Anchor Lindsay Liepman.
Hanging high above the gym is the Olympic flag. It's part of the dream for so many young athletes, and the journey to that level of success starts with a dream, a mat and a gym.
"It's her home away from home," said Jacy Villarreal, whose daughter attends Extreme. "Minutes matter. Minutes matter."
Villarreal isn't talking about the time her daughter Lillian spends practicing every tumbling pass.
These minutes were between life and death.
"It definitely reminds you that life is short," said Jacy Villarreal. "They were minutes away from being severely injured or killed in that tornado."
"Take me through the day on May 22 and the sequence of events and what ended up happening," Liepman asked Zenobia Olivares, office manager at Extreme Cheer & Tumble.
"Okay...can I have a minute?" Olivares said as she took a moment to collect herself.
Olivares was inside the building when the tornado hit.
"I remember it," Olivares told 6 News. "I remember it. It was just a regular day. We knew storms were coming."
Just a week before, the staff reviewed its severe weather policies and procedures.
"So we're going through the day like normal," Olivares said. "Our after school ends at 6 p.m. and we didn't have our after school program at that time. We had cheer practices and regular classes going on."
It was a normal day for the Villarreal family too.
"I had dropped her off for cheer practice that day and I ran home to take care of our three boys and the first tornado siren went off and we said 'It's not that bad,'" said Villarreal.
But soon the weather escalated.
"We started getting notifications on our phones and exactly the same time the notification started coming across about the tornado warning, the sirens started going off," said Olivares.
Thirty children and about ten parents were inside Extreme, including Lillian Villarreal and fellow cheerleader Madelyn Pena.
"Miss Zenobia came in and said 'Get into the hallway,'" said Lillian.
Everyone moved to the safest spot in the building.
"Calmly, no one is frantic at that point," Olivares told 6 News. "Weather is still okay. Nothing is going on outside at that time and we're just getting them in place. Just keeping everybody calm."
Then, everything changed.
"The second tornado siren went off and I called my husband and said 'I'm going to get her because I don't want to get stuck in bad weather,'" said Villarreal.
"Electricity went out right away," Olivares said. "We already had our flashlights. Kids were starting to scream and cry. I could hear my after school staff saying 'It's okay it's okay.' Everybody was just trying to comfort everybody as much as they could."
"It was rainy and loud and the lights went out," Lillian Villareal said. "We all got scared and started screaming. The coaches said to get down on your hands and knees and cover your neck, and then the water started coming in from the cheer gym."
"I thought it was going to be the last minute of our life," said Pena. "I was scared and I thought I was going to die in my ten years of life."
The gym took a direct hit from the tornado. Both Olivares and Jacy Villarreal saw the tornado rip the building apart, Villarreal from her car and Olivares from inside the building.
"You could hear the noise," said Olivares. "You just kind of feel like there's a lot going on outside at that point, but I could see the cheer window and at that point I did see the building blown away and it just got whisked away. At that point I was just praying, 'Take this away, Keep us safe and take this away.'"
"I could see the gym, and the winds turned sideways," Villareal said. "I could see roofs flying in front of me. I could see trees. There was a black wall and at that point I saw the tornado hit the cheer gym that I knew that she was in and I had to stop because I couldn't drive into it. So I sat for what felt like a long time and thought 'Do I go back to the boys or do I go back to find her?'"
Villarreal was worried she had seen her daughter for the last time.
"Because of the way the gym is laid out, it hit the gym they were in," Villareal said. "I knew that was the gym they were in and that's exactly where it hit. It was terrifying to watch it hit the gym and blow away and not know if she went with it. I texted my husband 'I love you' and I drove into the tornado. It was pushing the car sideways, the hail was baseball sized. I got to the parking lot and the parking lot looked like a war zone. The AC from the back was in the front, there was a dumpster on somebody's car, all the windows were blown out."
"So I jumped out and the cheer gym door, I could see the cheer gym was gone," Villareal continued. "I tried to go in the main door, the ceiling was falling in. I saw her coach crack the door and look at me, but I couldn't stay there. The wind was too strong so I had to go sit in my car."
Jacy Villarreal sat through the hail in her car, not knowing if her daughter was alive. With cell service down, she didn't receive the message that everybody was safe.
"It was a lot of sit and wait and wonder," Villareal told 6 News. "Their coaches are our heroes. They got them out they got them safe. They held the doors closed, they held the kids down when the wind was trying to pick the younger kids up. I texted them 'We were family before and now you'll never get rid of us. You made what could have been the worst day of my life...not. Now you're stuck with us for life.'"
"I can't help but think you and the staff that day saved lives," Liepman said to Olivares.
"God definitely had us where we needed to be to keep us safe and no one was injured," said Olivares. "I cannot say this enough about the staff, they were calm the entire time. Those kids, those families, that was their first priority."
"I think they're heroes," said gym owner Bridget Preddy. "They are absolute heroes."
The gym was Preddy's dream.
"From a very young age, I grew up loving gymnastics and cheerleading, it had always been my passion," said Preddy.
In 2014, her husband Dave built their dream gym on West Adams.
"Dave and I are both givers," Preddy said. "My idea of receiving is to make others shine."
The Preddys were visiting an ill family member when the tornado hit.
"I never expected it to hit the gym," Preddy told 6 News. "I give myself a little time to think about it and empathize about what went on inside the gym that day, but I do it in small phases because it's my life work, it's still very difficult."
There is a silver lining among the twisted metal and debris. The owner of a nearby gym, Pivot, reached out to the Preddys so Extreme's athletes can continue classes during the rebuild.
"We're going to build back, but we're going to build back better so these kids can get back to accomplishing what they want out of their lives," said Dave Preddy. "We had it built and we can just build it back. I don't know when it will be ready, but failure is not an option."
"I think this will be a life lesson that we talk about for a long time, and we talk about the resilience and that we didn't give up and we stuck together," said Bridget Preddy.
Within 24 hours of the storm, something much stronger formed...a bond that cannot be broken.
"It's just like everyone came together in moments that I was overwhelmed and thought 'Am I supposed to give up? Am I supposed to rebuild?' and every turn was yes. It's not an option," said Bridget Preddy.
"She's tough as a cheerleader," said Villareal. "They're strong, she's strong. We're extreme for life. They got us now."
A GoFundMe has been created to help Extreme rebuild. You can donate at this link.
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