Okla. Police Officer, 4‑Year‑Old Son Take Shelter in Bathtub as Massive Tornado Destroys Home

ENID, OK—The week before an EF4 tornado destroyed her home in Gray Ridge Estates, Marianne Gehay took time on a sunny day i n Northwest Oklahoma to explain to her 4-year-old son about tornadoes.

“Because the season that it is, I explained to him what a tornado was,” Gehay said. “It was a super sunny day out, and you know, they had the sirens (testing). So I opened the door for him and said, ‘Hey, you know, if you ever hear this, this is what this is and this is where we go.'”

She never dreamed in such a short time they both would be taking those precautions in the center room of their home, the only one with a semblance of four walls standing after the storm.

‘Coming straight for you’

She said she was busy that Thursday evening, April 23, 2026, “doing laundry of all things” when she heard the sirens. She cracked her door open to make sure she was hearing right, she said, and checked her phone.

It had been “blowing up” with messages and calls from friends and family about the tornado warning.

Her husband, Brandon, an officer with Waukomis Police Department, came through the door “in kind of a panic” and said there was rotation outside.

Since he was on duty at the time, he couldn’t stay, which Gehay said as an Enid Police Department officer herself she understood.

She got back on the phone with her sister and started to make plans in case she and her son, Romyngton Wagner, needed to seek shelter.

Her husband called as he was leaving the addition and told her a large tornado was across the highway and “it’s coming straight for you.”

He was sent by the department to block traffic, “so he was actually just south of the overpass and was actually watching the tornado come through.”

“I grabbed my 4-year-old and threw some tennis shoes on him, and he’s got a little blue bear that he carries around everywhere.”

She took them all to the bathroom and laid down over her son in the bathtub.

‘My EPD family’

Gehay has lived her life in Oklahoma and always had heard a tornado sounds like a freight train. She remembers hearing it, and maybe it did sound like a train.

“I think I was so focused on, you know, keeping my 4-year-old safe and praying to God that we weren’t going to get pulled from the home,” she said. “And next thing I knew, I heard, you could hear, like I said, the tornado approaching. You could hear the wind pick up, the walls started to shake, glass shattering, the light started to flicker and finally shut off. And I think at that point, you know, like I knew that it was, it was right there. And I looked up, and all I could see was the walls around us in the sky.

“I was sitting there, laying over top of him, you know, praying to God and stuff. And … I kind of got that feeling in my heart and my chest, you know, like we’re going to be OK, and then, I heard it just blowing (further) away.”

She remembers the sounds at that point, the tornado winds fading, the sirens blaring, help coming.

“I will say it’s a relief to hear my fellow members of the department … my EPD family … calling, because I could hear them just approaching, and then I heard my husband climbing over, over stuff, and he busted through the bathroom door and pulled us out of the bathroom.

“So I think, without my husband coming home, you know, and telling me what’s going on and giving me that phone call of, ‘Hey, it’s coming straight for you.’ I don’t, I don’t think we would have made it in the bathtub in time. So I’m very thankful for that.”

One of their own

After her morning shift, Gehay left her patrol car parked near her home.

“I had it in the driveway, which is on the south side of the house,” she said, “and it got blown several feet from the driveway, and just kind of it got hooked on the tree right there. It was actually on its side before we were able to pull it down.”

The damaged vehicle drew attention on social media, but as people realized it was not occupied at the time of the tornado, it has become a symbol that emergencies sometimes affect even those on the front lines as first responders.

Thanks to her EPD family and others, Gehay said her immediate needs have been met. The family is staying in a friend’s AirBNB now and is looking to rent. Her son talks about how their house and his toys were damaged, “but he’s still my happy, little boy running around, playing, laughing and smiling. So that’s good.”

The home that was destroyed is insured and belongs in her family, so she is not sure what is going to happen with rebuilding.

“I think it’s kind of too early to tell. I think that, you know, we plan to rebuild there, but I know that there’s been some possible talk of not rebuilding, but hopefully we can, because that was a very lovely neighborhood with a lot of lovely people. So hopefully we will be living out there again sometime.”

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