In middle of whirlwind, 13-year-old solid as a rock for young brothers during Windsor tornado

By Bryan Mims, WRAL reporter

Windsor, N.C. — Along Morning Road in Windsor, nobody could sleep early Tuesday as Hurricane Isaias blew across the region. Certainly not 13-year-old Zacahariah Hall and his two younger brothers.

“We were watching TV, and then all the lights just went out, and I hard a big boom. And all of a sudden, our house started flipping. I was holding onto both my brothers. I was trying to grab and pull in both of them, but I couldn’t,” Zacahariah said Thursday.

His littlest brother is only 4.

“I just grabbed my younger brother and turned into a ball and held him,” Zacahariah said. “It was like the the tornado picked up our house, and it was tumbling in circles. We were all tumbling in circles. We were all just turning, and we crashed to the house in front of us.”

A tornado that spun out of Isaias tore through the neighborhood on Morning Road, and the boys’ parents were flung across the yard.

Zacahariah’s arm was cut by flying glass.

“I had two pieces of glass in my arm,” he said. “I didn’t really feel it because of all my adrenaline, but it was after we got in the house that we started feeling all the bruises and cuts and stuff – all the pain,” he recounted.

His brothers, his sister, mom and dad were all hurt, but all survived.

All of them ended up in a local hospital.

Zacahariah was released from the hospital Thursday.

His neighbors are continuing to sift through the wreckage of their lives.

Down the road from Zacahariah’s family is Anthony Harrell, son of Lethia Ann Edwards, one of two people killed in the storm.

All along Morning Road, people are in mourning.