After the tornado lifted, stories spread of butterflies, butterfly people, or angels protecting children from the storm, offering peace and hope amid the community's severe devastation. Many accounts circulated, including three representative stories from May 22, 2011: a father lay on top of his daughter in the yard, grasping the grass to hold them down as his shoes were pulled from his feet, and when the storm passed unharmed, his daughter said a butterfly had held them down; a young girl said a butterfly wrapped its wings around her after the storm lifted her into the air and brought her safely to the ground; and a child in a car seat emerged without a scratch from a car filled with glass and debris and later said a butterfly had wrapped its wings around him, protecting him and making him feel safe.