A winning lottery ticket worth nearly $2 million found its way into the hands of an Iowa woman whose home was wiped out in tornadoes 20 years ago, officials said Thursday.
Tammy Gordy, 56, a dietary aide from Ottumwa, bought the life-changing Powerball ticket at a Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh store Saturday, Iowa Lottery Vice President Mary Neubauer said.
Gordy had just finished breakfast Sunday when she began cleaning out her purse and going through a few weeks' worth of lottery tickets with the Iowa Lottery's mobile app.
Amid the losing tickets, the app told her the Powerball ticket she picked up Saturday was worth $2 million.
"I fell into my chair,” Gordy said in an interview with Iowa Lottery. “I couldn’t see! There were all those zeroes! I was like, ‘Maybe I need my glasses.’ So yeah, we screamed.”
Steve Gordy, who owns an auto repair shop, said his wife suddenly lost command of the English language at that moment.
"I wasn't sure what to think when first she looked at it and she jumped up and was saying, well, not English, just other words I couldn't understand," he recalled. "Then I looked over, and it was a lot of zeroes."
The couple's stroke of luck came a little more than 22 years after their home in Agency was destroyed when a series of tornadoes ravaged communities across Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas on April 10 and 11, 2001.
“We were in the process of building a home, and it kind of got put on hold for a few years, so now this is going to speed it up,” Tammy Gordy said.
“And it’s going to go into better details! I’m talking a walk-in closet and a Jacuzzi tub! That’s what I’m talking about!”
The couple have been renting since the loss of their home, and the $2 million prize will go toward their new house under construction in Ottumwa, Neubauer said.
Gordy took home $1.42 million this week: the $2 million prize minus $480,000 in a 24% federal withholding and short $100,000 for a 5% Iowa tax.
She bought just one ticket Saturday with randomly selected numbers and hit the five regular numbers but not the final Powerball.
Had Gordy gone 6-for-6, the ticket would have been worth $424 million.
