“You need to know the zoo no longer looks like the zoo that we know and love,” mom Ashleigh Schroeder said.
ST. LOUIS — What was meant to be a joyful end-of-school-year tradition turned into a harrowing encounter with a tornado for a Godfrey mother and four children visiting the Saint Louis Zoo on Friday afternoon.
Ashleigh Schroeder had taken her two kids and two of their friends—ages 9 to 12—for a celebratory day at their favorite spot.
“We have been members of the zoo since our kids were babies. It’s kind of our happy place,” Schroeder said. “I knew there was supposed to be a thunderstorm, but we’ve certainly been there through thunderstorms before.”
But soon after arriving, the sky darkened dramatically.
“It changed to this big black cloud,” she said. She checked her phone and realized this wasn’t an ordinary thunderstorm.
Quickly and calmly, she guided the four children into the monkey house, she said.
“I knew the monkey house had a basement,” she said, trying to plan. “Not only did I have my kids, but extras.”
According to Schroeder, there was no rain at that time, but she said her phone said this was serious.
Five minutes later, all the zoo goers who were in the monkey house phone started to go off, alerting them of the possibility of a tornado, Schroeder said.
“We all went down in the basement, and there were a handful of other people down there,” she said.
Schroeder said she and other moms were keeping calm so as not to alarm the children.
For at least 30 minutes, “someone would go up and check to see if it passed, and they would come back with a smile on their face saying, ‘It’s fine, it’s ok,'” she said.
Schroeder said the tornado sounded like a freight train they heard every time they opened the doors to the upstairs.
“When the kids asked what it was, I told them it was probably just the hand dryer in the men’s restroom,” she said, laughing. ” I was trying so hard to keep them calm and not scared to death because I was already scared to death.”
When the zoo goers hunkered down with Schroeder saw clear skies, she came upstairs and walked outside but was quickly urged to go back into the building so zoo keepers could ensure that all animals were accounted for.
“I was just dumbfounded,” she said. “I cried because the zoo is our happy place, so to see that kind of destruction was just shocking. … Every single path was blocked by massive debris and trees down.”
When the children Schroeder brought learned they were tornado survivors, they thought it was exciting.
“You need to know the zoo no longer looks like the zoo that we know and love,” she said, warning the kids before they stepped outside. “It’s changed. It doesn’t look like what it did when we came down here.”
Before they left, they looked at the monkeys.
“A couple of them looked really sad,” Schroeder said.
The journey out was far from normal, navigating a maze of debris. But they made it—and once they were safe, Schroeder recorded the kids reflecting on the experience.
“The good thing is none of the carnivores escaped and tried to eat any human beings,” one of the kids said.
The zoo opened on Monday. According to its website, Emerson Zooline Railroad and the River’s Edge area did not open that day but will open later this week. The Butterfly Wing will remain closed for repair. For updates, click here.
