HGTV / YouTube Erin and Ben Napier
HGTV star Erin Napier published her third book, “Heirloom Rooms”, on October 3, and now the “Home Town” star is reliving different memories from her homes throughout the years.
In an October 17 Interview with Southern Living’s “Biscuits and Jam” podcast, Erin thought back to December 2019 when a tornado passed through Laurel, Mississippi, leaving some damage in its wake.
“You know, we have tornado warnings all the time, but they don’t normally come that close,” Napier told podcast host Sid Evans, “I had a roasted rosemary chicken in the oven, and Ben’s little brother and his wife were coming over to eat with us. Helen was almost two. And the tornado sirens started going off.”
Erin Napier’s Home Was Damaged By the Tornado
Despite not expecting the tornado to have a big impact, Napier said that she and her family decided to seek shelter in “the closet under the stairs”, and they couldn’t have gotten there at a better time.
“As soon as we got in and closed the door, we could feel the house, it felt alive in a way that really scared me,” Napier shared, “You don’t want to hear your house move and creak and pop. But it also felt sturdy. It felt like, ‘Okay, it’s fixing to do its job and it’s gonna protect us. It’s gonna shelter us.’ And it did.”
From the closet, Napier and her family, “could hear glass breaking, but we knew that the house was holding steady. And then it was over so fast, and we ran in there. We didn’t have power, but the front windows in our living room had been busted out by debris. The Christmas tree was a mess. The ornaments, a lot of ’em got broken.”
Napier described how before the tornado passed through, it had been an especially hot day, but as soon as it was over, the air got “so cold”.
Napier and her family had to stay at her parents’ house that night as they had lost power, and she admitted that the whole ordeal “was scary. It was a close call, but our house was ultimately fine, it only busted out a couple windows. And it was just sad to see this neighborhood with so many historic houses losing their chimneys, huge trees got uprooted in a few areas, but it could have been worse.”
Erin Napier Landed on the New York Times Bestseller List
Luckily for Napier, the tornado is long gone, the damage has been fixed, and now she is able to focus on happier times. One happy time that Napier is able to celebrate is “Heirloom Rooms” landing on the New York Times Bestseller list, as the author revealed in an October 12 Instagram post.
Napier’s newest book landed at number 15 on the list of bestselling Print Hardcover Nonfiction. Napier was nearly speechless at the accomplishment in an October 11 Instagram post which she captioned “Oh wow wow wow wow thank you so much, y’all.”
This is Erin’s second bestseller after her children’s book “The Lantern House” peaked at number 3 on the Times’ children’s picture book list in January 2023.
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Erin Napier Relives ‘Scary’ Natural Disaster That Damaged Her Home