Amanda Prince, 41, was kneeling in the walk-in freezer when the tornado touched down Feb. 19.
She recalls telling her coworkers at the Arby’s on Bloomington’s west side that something was wrong. The sound of the tornado was the “scariest thing ever,” she remembers. Prince was on her knees, praying.
“Please, God,” she remembers saying. “Don’t let this happen to me again. I don’t want to lose the home, only home I have left.”
Less than a year prior, an EF-2 tornado — on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, strong enough to remove roof structures and shift houses off their foundations — swept through Monroe County.
Indiana averages 22 tornadoes a year, with around two a year in Monroe County. But last year, over 60 tornadoes touched down in the state.
The May 16, 2025, tornado devastated the Economy Inn apartments where Prince lived with her boyfriend and puppy, Orion.
When Prince heard the sirens go off that evening, she rushed to wake her boyfriend. She waited out the tornado in the bathtub with Orion. The aftermath wasn’t pretty — crumbled cinderblocks and splintered wood beams had been tossed across the parking lot, fluffs of pink insulation strewn across the grass.
By midnight, the fire department was at the apartment complex, telling residents they had to leave. The structure wasn’t safe anymore.
“And then that was it,” Prince said.
She lost everything.
She and her boyfriend were down about $30,000 between lost personal belongings and damage to their car. They moved into their van and have been applying for houses since. They’ve been denied or met with steep deposit prices. The two have turned to hotel surfing and sleeping in their van.
Prince works full-time at Arby’s, and her boyfriend, William Canner, works at O’Charley’s. That’s really all they do, she says, is work. Why would she want to be in her van all the time? One night, she remembers, she fell asleep and woke up in the cold. It was below freezing outside, and the van had run out of gas.
Usually, they park the van at the parking lot by the west side Fifth Third Bank, the only place they really feel safe staying overnight. People have stolen from them in other places, Prince said.
“I lock the doors, but it’s like, I sleep with one eye open always,” Prince said. “Because you never know.”
Then another EF2 tornado ripped across Bloomington’s west side Feb. 19 this year, damaging the Monroe County Humane Association, Fieldstone neighborhood and Arby’s. The tornado left Fifth Third Bank with a hole in its roof and debris scattered across the parking lot. Prince had nowhere to park safely for the night.
That’s when she called Katie Norris.
“She said, ‘Oh yeah, get over here. We have a place for you.’ She did,” Prince said.
Norris, the founder and executive director of Hotels for Homeless, crowdfunds to get people emergency housing in hotels or shelters.
A few weeks ago, when a winter storm dropped over a foot of snow on Bloomington, Norris said they found housing for 57 individuals. When shelters fill up, she finds other places for people to stay.
Prince originally reached out to Norris last December, when the weather got cold, and she’s been helping her find shelter as needed and as available since.
Norris posted about Prince’s situation on the Hotels for Homeless Facebook page, requesting donations..
“We raised the money right then and there,” she said.
Norris started Hotels for Homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic, when a family member reached out to her after shelters filled up and she and her daughter couldn’t get in anywhere. Norris said she spent eight hours and could not find the family member a single bed in a shelter.
Norris reached out to her family, and they pooled money for a couple nights in a hotel for her.
Prince is now staying at a hotel on her own expenses and working with Heading Home of South Central Indiana to find permanent housing. Prince said she tries to pay things forward when she can and donate back to Hotels for Homeless.
She thinks people have misconceptions about those who are homeless.
“People have no idea what it feels like to be hungry,” Prince said. “They don’t know what it’s like. They don’t know what they’re going through. They just look and they just judge immediately.”
Prince said she’s not sure yet what she’ll do, but she’s working hard to get a place. She prays every single day, she said, and her family prays for her too. She has a granddaughter now and a grandson on the way but said she works too much to get to see her.
“I’m working really hard right now to get somewhere,” Prince said. “I want to do better.”
