Man Gets Hilarious Notification Amid Fallout From Tornado That Wrecked Home

A Nebraska man whose house was all but destroyed by a powerful tornado still found something to smile about in the fallout from what happened.

Everyone reacts to stressful situations in different ways. For some people, the most effective coping mechanism is humor, even in the darkest of times. Bryce Kneeland's moment of levity came just after the tornado had ripped through the home he shared with his wife, Bryanna, in Elkhorn, a neighborhood in Omaha.

Several tornadoes touched down across Nebraska and Oklahoma last week, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. While several jaw-dropping videos of these devastating twisters have surfaced online, Kneeland got a first-hand look at one as it headed toward their home.

"I was originally out back watching the storm come in because I thought I had more time," Kneeland told Newsweek. "I made it to the basement laundry room about 30 seconds before the storm got to the house."

Once down there, Kneeland recalls listening as the tornado laid waste to the house.

"It was crazy," he said. "I heard my patio door shatter, some loud bangs from furniture being thrown across the house, and a ton of rushing wind. definitely sounded like a train running through the house."

Kneeland said he wasn't aware of the scale of the destruction that awaited them once the tornado had passed, though.

"I had no idea how much damage was done," he said. "I thought it was just gonna be replacing some windows because that's what I heard breaking. I didn't hear anything that sounded like my living room getting ripped off the house though."

Once the tornado eventually passed, it prompted a mad dash as Kneeland attempted to salvage as many of their personal items as possible from the onslaught of rain now battering the exposed interior of their decimated home.

"I was relieved I survived, mainly just in shock, though," Kneeland said. "Then I realized I needed to save as much of our personal items as I could, so I was running up and down the stairs, grabbing stuff and just throwing it in the basement."

It was during this period that Kneeland began to notice something: an alarm was going off. Walking over to the home security console, he realized that he was being notified that the patio back doors were open.

"I don't remember when I first noticed it going off. There was just so much going through my head immediately after the storm cleared, but once I got to take a second to relax I realized it had been going off every 20 seconds for quite a while," Kneeland said.

That's when he filmed himself jokingly reacting to the notification by climbing through his home's wreckage and closing the shattered patio doors.

"I just figured it would make a funny video, just some light-dark humor," he said of the clip he uploaded to TikTok (@brycekneeland). "But I noticed after I recorded the video that the door sensors got knocked off, so the unit continued to yell at me until [it] ran out of battery."

Kneeland uploaded the clip to TikTok (@brycekneeland) to share the bright moment from his otherwise dark day with his followers. At the time of writing, the video has already been watched over 20 million times.

"I figured I should make the best of a bad situation and try to find some humor in the destruction," Kneeland said. "Apparently it worked!"

Finding humor in times of stress is common, stemming from a "need to need to experience and express the full spectrum of emotion," according to Claire Brummell, an international consultant and expert in human behavior.

"At times when we are engaging in dark humor, it's often because we are having an overwhelming experience of the more 'negative' or challenging emotions, such as grief, sadness and anxiety," Brummell told the health advice website, Patient.

Sadly, Kneeland has confirmed that what remains of his home is going to have to be torn down.

"We met with the insurance adjuster," Kneeland said. "It's a total loss, so we'll have to bulldoze and start over. We'll likely max out our insurance policy for the home and might get close for the personal items, too."

Knowing they will likely have to raise additional funds to cover the losses, Kneeland said a GoFundMe has been set up. It looks like some of those who watched and laughed at his video might have already contributed to the cause with over $9,000 raised already towards a $10,000 target.